TNT: Revilution (TNTR.WAD)

In 2009, Whoo opened the doors for TNT2, what was to be a spiritual sequel to TNT: Evilution. What followed was one of the longest and most protracted and most importantly PUBLIC development cycles in the community. Somewhere along the way, Steve Muller aka "Kyka" took the reigns of development along with a few other forum regulars who really wanted to see TNT2 make it to completion. I distinctly recall playing a gorgeous TNT2 demo map from Xaser. His teaser generated a lot of buzz for the project, but certain folks including a late-returning Whoo looked at the direction that Kyka had taken TNT2 and were vocally...dissatisfied. Somewhere after all the name-calling and aspersions, when the project heads could speak a bit more civilly in public, there was a project split in 2014, founded upon some sort of a level draft where levels were split up like dividing property during a divorce. A bit more level-headed than the divorces I've heard talk of, really. This is where Revilution's story begins, as a TNT2 spinoff.

TNTR began under Kyka's leadership but it didn't end this way. Micah Petersen, aka "Jaws in Space", took ultimate responsibility for driving Revilution to completion, with it seeing a final release in 2017. From what I gather, some of the material that migrated from TNT2 to TNTR was cut yet again, leading to TNT Forever, a project that is the ultimate resting place of material cut from Devilution and Revilution, to be released after TNT2 has had its final heyday. Devilution finally saw something of an official release in 2023, though its MAP26--"Last Stop at the Border"--has made yet another Marcaek in "Mourning Halls"-style development sagas. It would be great to see a TNT2 post-mortem some day, chronicling the period of time between Whoo kicking the project off in 2009 and Jaws in Space formally interring TNT Forever on /idgames.

If you haven't played Evilution, well, I think that you're missing out. In it, Doomguy is the leader of a platoon of marines that is safeguarding new UAC gate research on Io, one of Jupiter's moons. Since Earth is prepared to slaughter the demons that come through the teleporter, Hell takes another tactic, this time sending an enormous Hellship to stage an invasion of the base. The megaWAD ended on a cliffhanger. After venturing into Hell-warped Io and slaying the demon spitter installed in the deeper regions of the UAC facility, you see a blue glow emerge from the split skull. Sifting through its techno-organic remains, you're shocked to see that the demon skull is sending out some sort of homing signal. This time Hell is sending a fleet, and it terrorforms Ganymede into the shape of a skull. Weird flex, but okay. Most of the ships peel off toward Earth but one heads toward Io, presumably to let its love shine down on you. Your mission is to send a warning to Earth so that the infernal fleet loses the element of surprise and then survive... if you can.

Revilution is a full 32-level replacement NOT for Doom II but, rather, the TNT: Evilution that all of us know and some of us love. TNT.WAD has endured a lot of criticism owing to the fact that it, more than any of the other official id products (ignoring Maximum Doom), exemplifies the '90s era of level design. I am glad to see that it has garnered some new adherents due to positive criticism from the Dean of Doom, with Drake O'Brien getting a tribute megaWAD after his passing (R.I.P.). If nothing else, then maybe players can use Evilution as a gateway to quirky level design, whether that means DoomCute as it is popularly used now or any of the numerous other indulgences, like the goofy pop-open doors in the sewer piping of "Habitat". 

TNTR and for that matter TNT2 need not be burdened with trying to match the design decisions behind the individual levels of Evilution. Like Plutonia 2 and PRCP, the goal of these works was not to do Final Doom the Way id Didn't (there's a separate project for that) but to recontextualize the spirit of the originals with level design that reflects the then-current sensibilities of the community. Generally speaking, Revilution is slam full of nice-looking and often gorgeous levels that punch at the player a lot harder than most of Evilution did--as far as I recall, at least. Some of these maps are gargantuan, adventure-like affairs. Quite a few of them have tricky layouts that are fun to unravel and explore, with a few authors even indulging in Eternal Doom-style extravagance, though only with regard to the secret reaches.

Pretty much the entirety of the megaWAD consists of techbase maps with chthonic features like barren landscapes or subterranean passages. The specifics, however, are important. The first few levels, for example, have a molten theme, while the second episode is meant to evoke abandoned and now infested UAC structures, kicking things off with an incredible, haunting experience before moving on to the deep places where the fiends have been breeding as well as unique locations like a derelict spacecraft. The third episode is "high tech Hell" (any relation to Hi-Tech Hell, I wonder?), with Hell having learned from the UAC, constructing its own industrial facilities. It's a fair mixture of techno-organic nightmares steeped in blood.

As Revilution began as Kyka's spinoff, it's only fitting that he has six authorial credits in the final release. It's difficult for me to get a feel for him as an author here, though, as every single one of his levels here has one or more co-credits, and it's only as the "primary" (first-mentioned) author in one case. I don't have a feel for what edits he may have made during production, especially when--excepting "Underground Activity" (MAP10, also wik Gothic)--they also credit either Jaws in Space or dobu gabu maru, I'm assuming in an essential post-production role. That said, Muller's name is attached to some of the most distinctive levels of the set, including both the incredible horror of "Transduction" (MAP12, also wik Stupid Bunny) and the puzzle complex of "Pharaoh's Claim" (MAP22, also wik Olympus). "Duality" (MAP32), co-crediting Jaws in Space, is Kyka's one first-billing, but it's a crazy one where the player jumps back and forth in a re-imagining of Ty Halderman's "Wormhole" concept, but with less a vibe of exploring a dark mirror world and more forced transitions into nightmare segments.

As the man with the blood on his hands, Jaws has three solo credits in the set. Petersen excels at creating (relatively) small levels that feature rough and tumble Plutonia-ish combat, reminding me of the relatively short levels of Perdition's Gate. These entries appear to be strategically ordered through the set as breather levels, appearing between some of Revilution's larger levels, I assume to break up the pacing. "Graveyard Shift" (MAP05) has a tough opening but feels like one of the more TNT levels of the set once you get the first moves sorted out, looking at its holding cells and the popcorn combat in the tech tunnels. "Hangman's Curse" (MAP13) is a bit more gentle and has a large office annex full of computer equipment. "Desolation" (MAP23) is a small outpost in Hell, the perfect stopover between "Pharaoh's Claim" and valkiriforce's "REDRUM" (MAP24).

Jaws's shadowy co-conspirator appears to be Darryl Steffen. I imagine that it's no coincidence that his name is attached to some of the level's biggest, most memorable maps, including--again--"Transduction" and "Pharaoh's Claim". His one unambiguous entry is "Devil's Den" (MAP16), purestrain dgm that straddles the line between puzzletacular and gut-wrenching firefights. I loved the sequence where you have to raise blast shields to protect you from arch-vile attacks as you creep across the back of a cavern. I haven't played The Gift yet (though I will soon), but it wouldn't surprise me to see the colored platform block puzzle appear there as I've now seen it both here and in Super MAYhem 17's MAP31, "Sinkysand Switchland".

Revilution may not have turned out to be as "high-profile" a project as TNT2 but it still attracted one of Team TNT's biggest fans, Eternal of TNT: Renascence fame. From what I gather, "Hell's Signs" (MAP18) continues in the same vein as his episode and is an awesome, complex homage to Evilution's "Inner Reaches", complete with a similarly referential music track, "Reaching Deeper". You'll also see a contribution from longtime hand Chris Hansen, who has a wonderful techbase map that, like many of the included levels, is a treat to explore ("Access Denied"). He's part of a pair of "old dogs", the other being revitalized veteran Steve Duff, part of the brains behind TMT's Realm of Chaos. Duff's two maps, "Blood Factory" (MAP05) and "Abandoned Port" (MAP14), are more aligned with the updated standard of difficulty seen in his more recent releases. The former is a bloody playground while the latter has some expansive areas for you to explore once the action chills out.

The prior year, Hansen had marshalled and published the Ty Halderman Tribute Project, aka Threnody, during which he managed to extract a level from dobu gabu maru. It also featured a level from Gothic, who alongside Kyka is responsible for Revilution's "Underground Activity" (MAP10), making for a hat trick between TNTR and THTTHREN. "Underground" is more of an action-oriented level with teleporter jaunts to disparate portions of the base before you finally open up the gate outside. The five-pointed star cavern is the sort of simple but huge and above all distinct architectural feature that smacks of Evilution to me.

valkiriforce is another TNT aficionado, though probably known more for drawing influences from pretty much every other vanilla megaWAD than his TNT: Resistance (another TNT tribute that I haven't played...). I knew a long, long time ago that Krizik was making the secret map, maybe even when this was all TNT2, and if I recall correctly it was also fairly obviously a "Pharaoh" tribute. "Anubis" (MAP31) is an awesome Egyptian retelling, crammed full of delicious secrets. "REDRUM" (MAP24) expounds on the tech Hell theme with a huge installation with plenty of unique areas to visit. It's in similar company alongside Pinchy's "Superweapon Facility" (MAP28), with its secret BFG annex and numerous setpiece encounter rooms, as well as the Olympus-Kyka-dgm joint of "Pharaoh's Claim" and its cryptographic portraiture.

gaspe is the other author who I strongly associate with a TNT style, namely Eternal Doom as evoked by his Legacy of Heroes. "The Crash Site" (MAP19) is yet another amazing adventure level, dangerous to explore (especially from pistol start) but an absolute treat to unravel, much like LEGHER. This is as good a reminder as any that I ought to be checking out the rest of his catalogue. I don't have as strong a grasp of XenoNemesis, but XN's only other level was Doom the Way id Did: The Lost Episodes's "Tartarus" (E3M4), which I really enjoyed. I don't have a great idea as to how much of "Communications Relay" (MAP06) they're responsible for versus Kyka, but it's a great action gauntlet with a color-coded optional annex and an excellent atmosphere of danger in its final portions.

While writing this review, I realized that I've played a good portion of Purist's works. You know what they say about first impressions? Well, for some reason my memory keeps defaulting to Doom 2 Unleashed's "Piss Factory" (MAP35). It isn't that there was anything wrong with it; it's just that I can't think of Purist's maps without them feeling slightly grimy. This is a shame considering how many awesome maps he made for Hadephobia while he shepherded it from its Progressive Fiction beginnings. "Spider Colony" (MAP17) is a great underground level with tons of broad hallways to facilitate the movement and targeted attacks of its many arachotrons, the climax stepping up with some ostentatious visuals including a drop from a relatively tall height into a huge, bloody cistern.

Because this is a circa 2017 release, Revilution's encounter design is representative of the shift toward run and gun and set piece encounters, with some levels leaning more toward geometry that serves action-orientation. I'd expect nothing less from cannonball, with both his "No Man's Station" (MAP07) and "Malware" (MAP25) delivering his brand of challenging but accommodating action in intuitive, attractive layouts. The same goes for AD_79's "Geothermal" (MAP02) and SFoZ911's "Uprising" (MAP01), both of which exhibit raucous action in early megaWAD map slots. I was pleasantly surprised by sincity2100's and dgm's "Fortress of Bullets" (MAP08), leaning hard on the zombie emphasis that I recall from Jimmy Sieben's "Stronghold" from Evilution (MAP09) but with encounter design that empowers the player rather than leaving them feeling outgunned.

I hadn't played anything from Eradrop before but see that they released Avactor the following year, clinching an individual 2018 Cacoward. Revilution doesn't feature many maps that are predominantly slaughter. "Bloody Garden" (MAP21) is one of them, topping things off with a simple but effective sequence where you must hold the line against a massive, encroaching horde with the rocket launcher. "Across the Blood Sea" (MAP29) starts out more run and gun until it hits the battlements, at which point you get more rocket-fueled suppression with an ostentatious "Dead Simple"-style climax in the midst of a blood flood.

Tarnsman and Alfonzo took things in a bit of a different direction with "The Visage of Time" (MAP27), which takes the player through a Phares-like overtuned pistol start before settling into some sharp shocks, like an arch-vile frenzy, before delivering an almost-silly zombie invasion. I had a slightly jaundiced view of MAYhem founder and ASS man TheMinoicDonut's fights, I guess because I forgot how much fun I had with his 32in24-14 maps, so it was nice getting to play "Revengineer" (MAP26). Its layout strongly reminds me of Super MAYhem 17's "Your Princess is in Another Fort, Asshole" (MAP19) in being a bit of a hornets' nest but it felt far nicer to the player, and that's even with the shell stores located behind the pain elemental duos.

The only tourniquet level I'm familiar with is Mayhem 2048's "Aberinkula" (MAP21), which I'm remembering as gorgeous and challenging slaughter, but I also know him by the reputation of 2016 Cacoward winner Miasma, which I'm dreading. His "Pourriture" (MAP11) is an architecturally awesome base level with a complex, highly vertical layout that has some tough fights but feels fairly understated. Apart from that ambush in the nukage cave, at least. I really appreciate the fact that a lot of authors decided to make layouts that were challenging to navigate, whether by switch-fu or sawtooths by way of verticality, sector machinery, or both. The D_GARG/Jaws in Space joint, "Nukage Zone" (MAP15), utilizes a very different sort of obstacle. It's pretty much the only large and obviously sandbox level of the set, with a sea of poison (alongside plenty of enviro suits) harrying your attempts to sort out the various islands and teleporter links.

Given Revilution's history, there's one incredibly unlikely pairing here, that being "Bunker Complex" (MAP09), a product that stretches through three of the major project leads of TNTR's development: TNT2 lead Whoo; its interim lead and later initial manager of Revilution, Kyka; and Jaws in Space, who got it out the door. I admit that I don't have the clearest picture of how the styles of these three authors meshed for MAP09; apart from Whoo's only other released single player map, "Cyberdemon Vertigo" from Plutonia: Revisited (MAP13). All of Kyka's previously published material is associated with Claustrophobia 1024 and its spinoff. Jaws had made quite a few levels prior to Revilution, but I only knew his contributions to NOVA: The Birth and MAYhem 2048, and not that well some eleven years after I'd played them. This level has an intricate layout but it's pretty straightforward to play as you are routed to disassociated areas of the map that then link back up to previously-explored bits both visually and physically. It's a neat way of making a, well, "linear" level that still meshes with TNTR's overall theme of handing the player the keys to the kingdom and then letting them sort it out for themselves.

"Malignata" (MAP30), by Obsidian with dobu gabu maru, was in the unenviable position of trying to do a TNT-style boss shooter map. Given that the color-coded telefrag puzzle was already played out, the authors decided to give us something else in the vein of "never seen before". And how! Once you get past the dense slaughter portion of the map, you're subjected to a novel simulation of spawner cubes (a very clever cheat that takes advantage of how monster telefrags are hardcoded into MAP30), as well as an obstacle course that simultaneously breaks the player in to two new pitfalls: invincible turrets that shoot plasma or rockets depending on the type.

When looking at the classic id releases, Evilution is the best when it comes to evoking realistic locations. Authors may scoff at the idea of TNT being associated with "worldbuilding" with its late-'95 hammered out to mid-'96 standards, but there's no comparing the apparent functionality of Doom II's levels to Evilution's, the latter of which's locations serve to ground the megaWAD's action. I get a bit less of this in Revilution; there just aren't a lot of one-to-one maps that are very obvious in their purpose-function. One of the major exceptions is Phobus's "Portal Facility" (MAP20), maybe the most location-based design of the entire set. The atmosphere when you step into the enormous hallway that dominates its layout is superb, and a few of its side-areas actually feel like they could be parts of the portal infrastructure.

Revilution isn't lacking in moments that try to ground the set; they just feel more DoomCute due to how they tend to stick out when you bump into them, like the office area that dominates the eastern portion of "Hangman's Curse". "The Crash Site" feels like one of the more ideal methods of how you would execute this with how unobtrusive the sector props are and the fact that the level truly is a crash SITE, building up through the mine to the point where you get to investigate the crashed ship. "Nukage Zone" is more on the classic style in that its storage dock with fork lift goes a long way toward grounding the purpose of the island facility while also featuring a pretty awesome launch control-type tech facility (an experimental time machine?) as its northeastern island. In contrast, the escape ship in "Pourriture" got a laugh from me, not because it was ugly or anything but because its existence in the final settling pond of MAP11 feels like a non-sequitur. "Superweapon Facility" is like the ultimate "have your cake and eat it too" level in this regard as all of its crazy set pieces feel like parts of a functioning Satanic research lab, bookended by a glance at a reception area at the beginning (love it!!) and a rocket launch facility at the end.

Of course, Evilution was also a testing ground for some unusual level design, by which I mean Ty Halderman's "Wormhole". The idea of a level that has a COMPLETELY OPTIONAL and secret dark side to explore is pretty ballsy from a level design perspective. Revilution pays tribute to "Wormhole" in three particular instances. I've already mentioned its importance to "Duality", but it's a major part of the climax of "Transduction", elevating an already moody and spooky level to peak uncanny when you step into a desolate remake of "Wormhole"'s starting area. I was completely blown away by the trip into the brightly lit basement and its subsequent dark side. I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention the sympathetic secret platform puzzle annexes of "Devil's Den", one of which has been Wormhole'd to a rusted, corrupt aesthetic.

Revilution has its own custom soundtrack, the vast majority of which was penned by Varis Alpha and Bucket, while also featuring selections from interim project manager Tristan Clark. One of the biggest surprises is that TNTR marked the return of Team TNT member Jeremy Doyle to tunesmithing, having previously been one of the major aural engineers of Icarus: Alien Vanguard. An in-depth blow by blow of the soundtrack is out of the scope of this review, but while I can't name anything off the top of my head beyond the atmosphere of Clark's "Ionian Isolation" or his "Reaching Deeper" (the latter of which sneakily references the unofficially-titled "Blood Jungle"), I was never off-put by what I was listening to.

As an interpretation of Evilution's experience rendered through the lens of 2017, I think that its greatest strength is in having a plethora of levels that demonstrate confidence in the player to figure out their own path through each map. I was frequently presented with multiple possible paths forward, usually with the freedom to switch tracks when I was being indecisive about the direction that I'd been taking. I love to explore, even at the expense of my own safety from pistol start. Many of these maps feel like they're loaded with secrets...and, given the way some of them are balanced, you'd do well to find them when you can.

I'd like to say that, as a collection, Revilution maintains what appear to be the idiosyncratic styles of its contributors. There's a lot of irony involved in this statement, though, given that more than 1/4 of the included levels had some processing from Jaws and dgm, extensively so in at least the cases of "Transduction" and "Pharaoh's Claim". Heck; all of Kyka's credits in this set apart from "Duality" appear to be building on the works of other authors. But, well, the process of crafting levels in Doom has generally been a private affair, with authors emphasizing themselves as authoritarians over their own works. Part of the complaints thrown at Kyka during the 2014 TNT2 takeover had to do with the edits that he made to contributions, which is amazing when I recall the initial explosion of drama when the first BTSX E2 release candidate dropped that was related to none other than map edits, the scope of which the primary author hadn't expected.

It's all water under the bridge, now, and while the path to some of these levels may appear to be...ahem...convoluted...I really believe in the process of authors building on scaffolds erected by their peers. While one author picking up where another left off in this fashion isn't exactly the same thing, the meshing of different authorial sensibilities is a big part of what made Mutiny such a fun project to me. I don't know if any one person could have given us "Communications Relay", "Bunker Complex", "Transduction", or "Pharaoh's Claim", so I'm glad that Revilution happened, not that I relish the bad blood that flowed through the community at the time.

I really enjoyed Revilution. I'd been looking forward to playing it for quite a few years now and based on the strength of this I'm stoked to see what Jaws in Space has marshalled together for Perdition's Gate: Resurgence, not to mention all of the other projects that he's fostered to completion. Perhaps, one day, I'll even get to see the finalized TNT2. In the now, however, supposing that you somehow haven't experienced TNTR in the eight or so years since its release, then you ought to do yourself a favor and play it now.

TNT: REVILUTION

by various authors

Uprising	MAP01
by "SFoZ911"
Getting things pumping with this awesome rock, metal, and lava base. The Berserk pack is offered up front, so I felt compelled to punch more monsters than I probably should have, even after snagging the shotgun. There's a lot of pleasantly pressing low-tier gunplay against Doom II trash monsters, facilitated by the open layout, but a couple of secret surprises. I was not expecting the blue key rocket launcher yard (a freakin' great cheat with the overhanging metal panels), nor the soul sphere annex.

MAP02	Geothermal
by Brayden Hart aka "AD_79"
	Another base, this one with some red-hot rocks. For some reason I'm reminded of Mutiny... It's been awhile, so I'm not sure how it compares to "The Furnaces", but this escalates the action a bit with a regular injection of beasties like revenants as well as an arch-vile ambush toward the end that can go south really quick. The soul sphere ambush is another fun encounter, casting a wide net that will easily catch an unprepared / slow player unawares. (I mean, it sure got me!) Pretty much every AD_79 level I've ever played has been a treat and this one is no different.

Access Denied	MAP03
by Chris Hansen
I like the buttery-smooth combat levels but Hansen changes things up with an expansive, nonlinear techbase. It's a nice-sized map with distinct areas and architecture as well as a complex layout. The end goal is to find two keys in order to raise the bridge to the exit. I love the blue key wing for its sort of Get Smart sector machinery--the cavalcade of tech panel reveals in the northwest corner--and the spiral staircase area. The blue key room as well as the stairs come with some fun fights. The red key wing threw me off because the blue one was so straightforward; it requires an E1M7 use of a moving pillar. After that, well, good luck in the nukage yard! Very fun.

MAP04	Blood Factory
by Steve Duff
	In my mind, there are two Duffs. There's the guy behind some of the classic maps that I loved in Realm of Chaos (not to say that I didn't love all the levels, just that he authored some of them), and then there's the dude behind Mayhem 2048's "Heat Miser" (MAP25). Steve has obviously had no problem adjusting to 2017's expectations regarding difficult maps. "Blood Factory" is more of a blood tornado that sends the player questing, forever under some sort of pressure. I felt pretty much boned the moment that I stepped out into the atrium that links most of the southeastern section together. It's a harrowing ordeal with the way that hitscanner coverage is employed. It gets worse, too, with the pop-up ambush that finishes the level out. Two arch-viles and a handful of pain elementals, plus all of the other interfering beasties makes this a surprisingly brutal experience. Err, it's a pretty cool level for a sanguinarium, if lacking a bit in nightmarish machinery (vanilla, I know). I really liked the look of the blue and red room to the west of the arachnotron cave; for some reason I got vague Deus Vult vibes.

Graveyard Shift	MAP05
by Micah Petersen aka "Jaws in Space"
The outdoor portion of this level is high-octane death fuel with a relatively simple complement of monsters. It's a lot to have on your mind when you also have to consider that the combat shotgun is locked behind the red key. Once you grab the key and get past the mancubi wall, which may or may not have fireballs at the ready, the level chills out into a really cool series of tech guts basement tunnels. The small packs of hitscanners and spectres made for great popcorn gunplay in both the bunker's lower recesses as well as the holding pens in the north. You just got to get past that opening chaos!

MAP06	Communications Relay
by "XenoNemesis", Steve Muller aka "Kyka", Darryl Steffen aka "dobu gabu maru", and Micah Petersen aka "Jaws in Space"
	This level is badass! I mean, I had a rough time comfortably handling the combat shotgun in the bifurcated blue / red wing, but other than that I had a blast. This is a big tech facility smack dab in the bloody Hellscape. I completely skipped past the REQUIRED door, but I probably would have given it a pass had I opened it since there's a pair of skeletons on the other side. The area that gave me so much trouble is entirely optional, but it strikes me as a much less difficult method of acquiring the combat shotgun, rocket launcher, and plasma gun. The map is littered with organic room-shapes that open up to reveal monster closets. This can get pretty hairy in the blue / red rad areas, if you're just starting out, but is otherwise a source of constant but fun low-level action. There's a secret yellow key that unlocks a couple of very handy supply caches; much appreciated! The way this level closes out with the red warning lights and the chunky corridor of monsters is great.

No Man's Station	MAP07
by Matt Powell aka "cannonball"
Leave it to cannonball to deliver nonstop thrills. This is a wicked fun and punchy techbase map with a sewer section that you have to chew through in order to make it to the other side of the sluice. Before all that, though, you'll have to survive the zombie / imp / lost soul mosh pit encountered at the start of the map. The sneaky arch-vile arrival at the end of the exit yard feels kind of dickish, maybe the nastiest surprise of the entire level. The frenzied rock track really complements the pacing.

MAP08	Fortress of Bullets
by "sincity2100" and Darryl Steffen aka "dobu gabu maru"
	I cannot possibly say enough good things about this map. This is some of the most enjoyable fast and furious hitscanner-heavy gameplay I've experienced in a long time. Even when entire monster closets open with tons of monsters at a seemingly rapid pace as you dive around, it's tough to feel overwhelmed. There are so many zombies but the chaingun reigns supreme (at least, up until you meet that first revenant) and you're almost never in danger of running out of ammo for it once you get past the opening. Strategically-placed barrels generally ensure that you get a lot of satisfying room clearing through intelligent shooting. The moment where chaingunners exit the teleporter coffins and reseed throughout the map felt pretty genius. This is so good a treat that I almost felt guilty playing it.

Bunker Complex	MAP09
by "Whoo", Steve Muller aka "Kyka", and Micah Petersen aka "Jaws in Space"
I like this map. I feel shades of, idk, the reactors from Evilution's "Open Season" (MAP06) and the barbed wire outdoor areas of course suggest "Central Processing" (MAP20). It's a facility with a layout that seems kind of congested at first but which opens up and interconnects as you explore the outdoor areas, eventually taking you to the vista visible from the starting area. The combat is pretty hefty but not as harsh as some of the previous levels. I think that you'll definitely want to have the early, secret plasma gun in hand, though. Standout encounter, eh, probably the fight around the pentagram teleporter in the cave.

MAP10	Underground Activity
by Robert Lopex aka "Gothic" and Steve Muller aka "Kyka"
	This is a supa cool rugged wildlands-bound base that has you taking teleporters around to eventually open up the gates to go outside and down into an ominous crater. The slaughter-lite cave clearing and red key ambush are easily worth the price of admission alone, but the base itself is just as crammed-full of action. It takes quite awhile to finally get the combat shotgun into your hands, but the authors rely on more of a Doom-ish action standard to keep the single shotty feeling adequate.

Pourriture	MAP11
by Thomas Seifert aka "tourniquet"
This nukage-drenched installation is simply fabulous, a three-dimensional cascading puzzle of a layout with multiple routes to the exit. It's exactly the sort of mental-mapping brainteaser that I enjoy, even if it meant that I frequently found myself doubting whether I was moving in the "right" direction. I liked that there was a semi-secret blue key that unlocks, among other things, the soul sphere secret, and there's a pretty good chaotic ambush in the nuke caves (itself an optional section) that it would be pretty handy for. It's just a treasure to explore.

MAP12	Transduction
by Stupid Bunny, Steve Muller aka "Kyka", "Megamur", and Darryl Steffen aka "dobu gabu maru"
	Absolutely fantastic. This is a horror-themed trip through a partially-deactivated asteroid station. There are all sorts of ambushes that pour on monsters in nice, low-tier chunks as well as long, atmospheric, monster-scarce segments with jumpscare teleporters and the like. One of the situations that caught me offguard was the blue key trap, which felt like an echo of The Lost Episodes of Doom's "Jupiter Planetary Control" (E1M4). The biggest showcase begins with an homage to Evilution's "Wormhole", though, which leads you into the basement of the facility, where its reactor core lies sleeping. It's spooky, but there's nothing hostile about it... until you take the monolith-like screen teleporter. The Hell dimension looks amazing and makes for a great, chaotic battleground. A+++.

Hangman's Curse	MAP13
by Micah Petersen aka "Jaws in Space"
The opening of this map has a sort of similar energy to "Graveyard Shift" but it's broken up into one abstract installation that you have to fight through in order to reach a much larger area with a slightly more deadly crossfire. For some reason I had a lot of trouble maintaining my health in this map, but I think I was just having a bad go of it. My sloppy playing made the Hell knights way more dangerous than they feel that they ought to. There are a lot of low key threats like chaingun snipers, revenants, and specters that blend in. I really enjoyed the office spaces and mission control station in the eastern installation.

MAP14	Abandoned Port
by Steve Duff
	This is a big, fun adventure map from Duff, a great way to ease me after the murderbox of "Blood Factory". Which isn't to say that Steve goes easy on the combat; it's just less relentless when it comes to player exposure. The ambush in the corridor that links the starting area to the yellow key corridor is incredibly congested. I was surprised to see the alternate path to the waterways through one of the starting area monster closets, but am loving how many of these maps have additional routes and areas to explore. There's still some "Blood Factory"-like scenery ensconced within the level's inaccessible areas. Well, mainly the walkway to the elevated platform in the dock yard.

Nukage Zone	MAP15
by "D_GARG" and Micah Petersen aka "Jaws in Space"
The scope of this map is kind of daunting at first. It's a "Gotcha!"-type sandbox with a main, central base and satellite islands. The arachnotrons do a pretty TNT job of leaving you feeling outgunned when you investigate the peripheral area and there are a few nasty surprises as you roam around the base at first, like that arch-vile guarding one of the combat shotguns. It's fun to puzzle out, though, with a number of teleporters taking you to secret cliffs. There's even an optional northeast annex with a blue key that unlocks a couple of...interesting closets. Standout encounter for me is the arch-vile insanity in the pillar building to the far east.

MAP31	Anubis
by Michael Jan Krizik aka "valkiriforce"
	This is an immense and fun tribute to Evilution's own MAP31, "Pharaoh". In a Wonderful Doom twist, this map has two pyramids for you to enter. It's also very generous, beginning with a deluge of ammo and health and offering every weapon except the BFG. It's worth tracing down the secrets for the 9000 as there are several surprise Cyberdemons, Masterminds, and armies of monsters--one of which might as well pop up behind you--to fend off, as well as some tactical arch-viles. "Anubis" was a joy for me to explore. I love sector machinery and there's a cute bit where you inert an underground pool of lava by dumping water onto it.

Duality	MAP32
by Steve Muller aka "Kyka" and Micah Petersen aka "Jaws in Space"
A confusing and challenging romp through two worlds, liberally sliding between each one. This is based on Evilution's "Wormhole" concept but rather than having one teleporter that links two subtly different maps, one of which is darker and harder, this one jumps back and forth as required progression by way of walkover teleport lines. You are free to explore each area to some extent but the maps don't really open up for full investigation until you're nearly done with each one. Some of the setups and thing placement are pretty brutal, emphasizing a tactical approach. Others, like the three arch-vile ambush in the "dark side" version of the 3 x 3 grid room, suggest more of a plasma gun frenzy. Hopefully, you found the secret one!

MAP16	Devil's Den
by Darryl Steffen aka "dobu gabu maru"
	This wicked cool level is full of secrets and puzzles, one of which is a colored platform type that echoes (or was it built before?) Super MAYhem 17. There's a genius segment where the player must raise a series of blast shields in order to dodge arch-vile attacks. This area remains a hazard unless you find the secret teleporter into the structure they're inside; conquering it will net you a very handy BFG. The way into the switch puzzle that grants access to the blue key is the thing that stumped me for the longest time. I was fine with most of the claustrophobic micro-slaughters, but the one in the cave that drops you off in front of the red key column teleporter is VERY cramped.

Spider Colony	MAP17
by Chris Bourke aka "purist"
Tons of arachnotrons and gnarled brown vines abound in this subterranean network of wide-open tunnels. In an interesting change-up, purist presses the plasma gun firmly into your hand, whichever direction you end up going first. You won't be hurting for ammo for much of the map, but the layout does a pretty good job of putting the baby spiders on point so as to keep you in their field of view. The huge crowd of arachnotrons in the central area feels dangerous and underwhelming at the same time, though that's more just a state of mind.

MAP18	Hell's Signs
by Alexander S. aka "Eternal"
	This a tribute to Evilution's "Deepest Reaches" (MAP16). I may not remember the absolute specifics of the level but I got enough of the vibe to recognize that the music track is similarly aligned. This is an awesome trip through subterranean caverns and ruins with lots of cramped gunplay, primarily weighted toward the combat shotgun. It's a bit easy to second guess whichever direction you decide to start as there are all sorts of interlinking side-passages, some secret and some semi-secret, that facilitate movement between the different legs of the map. It has a very classic feel; I love it, fiddly progression and all.

The Crash Site	MAP19
by "gaspe"
After Legacy of Heroes, I expected no less a stunning level from gaspe. This is a sort of mining outpost, part of which is under construction, and which is also the scene of a spacecraft crash. You'll eventually have to make your way into the downed ship, but it's only a small portion of the tricky tiered tunnels and lovingly-detailed workspaces that you'll have to fight through. This is kind of a tough level to start. There are major encounters with arch-viles in two of the directions that you have available. Think tactically and know that just because the elevator doesn't work doesn't mean that you can only get off on the ground floor. I'm also not sure when I opened up the platform to the cacodemon crusher, which is a major progression point given that it's how you lower the red dash bars. The finale is quite the clusterfuck and can quickly end up with a doomed space marine.

MAP20	Portal Facility
by James Cresswell aka "Phobus"
	The scale of the hallway that links the west and east ends of this map is impressive. It's so vast that I knew that we were going to get some kind of a showdown in it; I just didn't know exactly what it would be. The east end is a sort of hub that you can explore to gather supplies and recover the red key, used in the west end. The incidental combat here is fine, with only one big ambush between you and the red key. The big finale is, well, awkward. Pretty much each one of the tech colonnades spawns a cacodemon, there are two arch-viles to each side, and there's a Cyberdemon at the gateway. I recommend just legging it, but if you saved a bunch of rockets, you can sort of hunker down in the starting room and combat shotgun cacos to death in order to buy time before the archies show up.

Bloody Garden	MAP21
by "Eradrop"
The new episode is marked with some cool brawls and moments of undeniable slaughter. This is a bloody, techno-organic facility that's slam full of monsters. Its absolute peak is a bit long trench-bound staircase that you will be throwing rockets down in order to beat back a tide of cacodemons and other monsters, with a Cyberdemon thrown in for good measure. It's a great exercise in player pressure and I appreciate that it feeds back into the starting structure. This map has, like, five other Cybies spread out in the periphery on columns looking imposing but not actually alert. I don't know when they're supposed to wake up, but they're all slain via a secret telefrag chain.

MAP22	Pharaoh's Claim
by "Olympus", Steve Muller aka "Kyka", and Darryl Steffen aka "dobu gabu maru"
	This incredibly badass corner of Hell has a BFG macguffin that must be solved through a series of shooty switches. You may find out about them early--they're distinctly ugly--or you might key into them supposing that you uncover the Pharaoh's cryptic cache, which holds the automap. The road to the BFG has a combat shotgun and plasma gun on the way. Otherwise, well, I struggled to maintain my health outside of the considerable secrets. It doesn't help that I completely forgot about the Berserk pack that I opened up at the level's beginning. This one is more about incidental combat than anything, but the big winding path to the exit (which you can skip with a secret Cyberdemon telefrag) and the visual of the tech pyramid sticks out in my mind, as does the crusher battle in the secret SSG annex.

Desolation	MAP23
by Micah Petersen aka "Jaws in Space"
Sometimes, what you really need is a short and punchy level, and "Desolation" fits the bill. This is a UAC/TNT outpost in Hell, with the player having to venture through the wilderness in order to get the keys that grant deeper access into the base. The lack of a combat shotgun creates the feeling of a slower pace, but there's a rocket launcher and plenty of opportunities to blow yourself up on specters while you're desperately trying to nuke bigger fish. This didn't personally happen to me, but I could easily see it occurring. Fast and fun; standout encounter for me is definitely the blue key ambush.

MAP24	REDRUM
by Michael Jan Krizik aka "valkiriforce"
	My favorite kind of level: enormous, sprawling adventure with tons of interconnections and fiddly progression involving platforming and sector machinery. While the map is bound by a strong id-like symmetric core, each of its side areas is large and has its own distinct theming. Sometimes it's a long staircase, a former scene of a massive slaughter. At others it's the goofy northwestern buildings, which you'll be moving through in a similar fashion on two separate occasions in order to reach the end. There aren't exactly a lot of massive secrets on the same order as MAP22 but you may want the BFG and, spoiler, I'm not used to thinking in terms of vanilla rocket jumping. There are tons of fun, chunky fights to chew through as well as some really awkward setups like the teleporter chamber and the guard tower with the revenant-revenant-arch-vile lift.

Malware	MAP25
by Matt Powell aka "cannonball"
This is a...really good bloody installation level from cannonball. The central area is descended from the Romero tradition with its immense blood cistern, but kicking things off by raising the main walkway is a visual that's huge in scope while also being very simple to execute. You spend most of the map exploring the periphery of the level, though, checking out granite caverns and--on the west end--an industrial battleground that serves as a prime opportunity for spamming your plasma gun. I really liked the character of the bamboo pole-style cave to the northeast. I couldn't quite figure out how to get the megasphere behind the blue key door, though. Very fun and VERY punchy.

MAP26	Revengineer
by "TheMionicDonut"
	This is an abstract death zone rendered in Revilution's E3 texture theme. "Revengineer" feels kinder to the player than the TMD maps that I've played in recent memory, among them Super Mayhem 17's MAP19. This is even considering how awash the level is in pain elementals, four of which are guarding the considerable shotgun shell stores. It's still a pretty hectic opening; it just sorts out at a much faster pace. There's some wise use of monster-blocking lines to force the player to tactically battle on the indoor staircase.

The Visage of Time	MAP27
by Richard Frei aka "Tarnsman" and Gus Knezevich aka "Alfonzo"
This is exactly the sort of gorgeous level that I'd expect from Tarns and Fonz. It's also exactly the sort of ballbuster that I'd expect from Tarns and Fonz. "Visage" is some sort of dam-like installation in Hell, I guess to keep from turning all the lava into obsidian (or diluting their magickal blood powerz). The opening of this level is a grueling exercise in resource management; you can't afford to miss a whole lot and it would behoove you to exploit infighting opportunities where available. Things sort of chill out when you make it to the mancubus blood fields. I mean, comparatively speaking. That one does end in a four-arch-vile rush, after all. The Cyberdemon/Doom II trash annex is one of the quirkier encounters I've seen; it's very satisfying.

MAP28	Superweapon Facility
by "Pinchy"
	The vibe I get is that Doomguy is the superweapon and this facility is designed to either kill him or test the limits of his combat capacity. This is a huge and super fun level that's loaded to the gills with setpiece encounters as well as impractical TNT geometry with bits like the mancubi towers east of the archives and the right angle stepping blocks in the level's northeast. Props for one of the simplest BFG secrets of the set, which also has 20% of the map's 500 monsters tied up in a tidal wave of easily-slaughtered zombies. One of my favorite encounter mechanics is the one where you can turn the crushers on and off with the step pads. I think that the toughest fight will probably be the southwestern circular room, supposing that you don't dash out before you get trapped.

Across the Blood Sea	MAP29
by "Eradrop"
This is a handsome, carnage-heavy techbase that offers up plenty of slaughter and slaughter-lite fights. Most of the heavy action waits until you get to the battlements, where you're subject to large waves of several different monster types (revenants, cacodemons/pain elementals, arachnotrons/Spiderdemon). I appreciate that the arachnotron wave comes with the blood level rising to give you more maneuverability space (and also to keep you from trying to escape into the moat...). I wasn't sure what I was going to get for MAP29, but some excellent run and gun is just what I needed before what I'm guessing is a supercharged shooter fight.

MAP30	Malignata
by James Caldwell aka "Obsidian" and Darryl Steffen aka "dobu gabu maru"
	This is not a boss shooter! Well, speaking as a traditional Icon of Sin. Two major edits to monster behavior have been made. One of these consists of auto-turrets. These invulnerable things figure into the post-mosh pit part of the map and come in two varieties, as the authors demonstrate: plasma and rocket. They're all over the final boss arena but also figure into some platforming/timing challenges. The other bit, which I completely misunderstood: There are monster spawner cubes that you will bump into and which create monsters, but these are finite and disappear once their job is done. You can't walk through them so you can't be telefragged, but they're invincible until they turn into a critter. Looking at the map and knowing that two of them are going to turn into a Cyberdemon and Spiderdemon, I'm guessing that they're just placeholder "monsters" that are destroyed by real monsters when they teleport into the map. Keep this in mind as you blast through the level. It won't make the incredibly gnarly ring o' hitscanners room with the Hell knight soul sphere cave any less horrible, but it ought to make the two arenas where the cubes figure heavily feel way less insane.

WHAT A REVILUTING DEVELOPMENT