Polri

Nice work! Could it be that you mean map 25 "Beginner's end" as being the most conceptual map wit the right backtrack: "to know the end, find the beginning"?

A few ideas: - have a few dedicated threads for general discussions about the iwads ("Doom 1: general discussion", "TNT Evilution: general discussion", "Monsters: general discussion" etc), and encourage people to post in those threads instead of starting new threads to ask: "who else thinks Downtown should have an SSG?". - in the same vein: if released wads get their separate subsection, it should be ok to bump these threads whenever you have something to say or ask about them. So instead of starting a new thread to discuss "finding the secret exit in map 15 of Ancient Aliens", just post it in the Ancient Aliens release thread. (bumping dead or dormant progress threads is something completely else, stay away from those if you just want to ask: "any progress on btsx ep-3? :) " - maybe a dedicated subsection for review threads (endless, not jabba, dean of doom companion thread...)?

Romero had a rule, that if you can see outside, you should be able to reach it. So in doom 2 map 29, there should have been a secret way to get "outside" of the cave and reach that spot in the northwest where the imps shoot you from.

Sunlust, Valiant & Plutonia Revisited Community Project.

Xaser's "Enigma Helix" in Plutonia Revisited Community Project was an epic adventure, and finally reaching the exit felt like a big achievement. Never figured out how you're supposed to reach the secret exit, though.

Maybe I'm being pedantic here, but the beautifully detailed, realistic settings in Lost Civilisation are way too refined to still be classified as "doomcute" in my opinion. :)

Knee-deep-in-Zdoom, sort off, in the final level.

Doom was made by the same designers as commander Keen, which had tons of optional content (including many optional levels) and quite a lot of obscure secrets and easter eggs, like having the ice cannon shoot you to the secret exit teleporter in Keen 1, or collecting the yellow worms to find the way to the secret pyramid in Goodbye Galaxy. And off course Keen "mooning" when standing idle long enough on the crescents in the Pyramid of the moon. :) I'm happy that they carried some of those tropes over to Doom, but I agree that they could have done even a bit more in that respect.

Sure, but like I said, Doom was designed for replayability. It wasn't the makers' intention to optimise the game for getting 100% secrets/kills on your first go. From the point of view of replayability it's actually a cool secret, as you will probably only discover it on later playthroughs, for instance by trying to see how the level plays if you visit the northern area first before collecting the key in the library area. I remember spending many hours replaying the levels and discovering obscure secrets (like the mega-armor in Downtown) and alternative routes (like the one in Gotcha! where you skip the Mastermind/Cybie fight). Or watching a friend killing the Cybedemon on map 10 from behind with an invuln, asking him how he got there, and him replying: "I have no idea, I was fighting those zombies and shotgunners and suddenly I was here". And then trying to figure it out together.

When doom and doom 2 were released, most people didn't have internet at home, had no acces to custom wads, en were basically replaying the same levels over and over again. I guess the authors were aware of that, and tried to maximise their replay value by providing difficulty settings, adding optional areas and alternative progression routes, and hiding a lot of secrets in the maps, including some very obscure ones like that room in monster condo or the rocket-jump secret exit in Mount Erebus. I remember the excitement as a kid when I discovered a new secret or shortcut in my 15th playthrough of a map. Today there are so many wads around, that authors usually design them to be fun and completable on a first playthrough, but it was a different context in 1994. So, to sum it up: this secret frustrated you, because you wanted to complete the game with 100% kills/secrets on your first playthrough, but that's not how people played it back then.

As a kid, I've always played the iWAD's on continuous, so only now, while replaying some classic levels on pistol start, did I realize that some of the larger levels, including Tricks & Traps, Downtown, Industrial Zone and Tenements don't include the SSG.

Ultimate Doom E2M5: make the path to the secret level more convoluted, involve some of the optional areas in the map (like the plasma gun area) in the process of unlocking it E3M5: change the music to something more church-related, for instance by involving organ sounds E2M8 and E3M8: switch the boss fights: Spiderdemon in E2, Cybie in E3 Doom 2 M01: connect both outdoor areas, possibly with a secret path M29: make beating the cyberdemon 29 mandatory to finish the level (or at least more challenging to skip) TNT M12: add a challenging fight in the crater area, instead of just one Baron Plutonia Plutonia is perfect as it is.

Doom 1 Favorite: E2M4 because of the atmosphere and replayability Least favorite: E4M4 because it's an uninspired filler map Doom 2 Favorite: Map 15, because it felt epic at the time, and finding the secret chain to secret exit was very rewarding Least favorite: Map 30 because it's ugly and anticlimatic (no new boss, just a wall spawning all the monsters we already know) TNT Evilution Favorite: Map 20, because it felt like an epic adventure at the time Least favorite: Map 24, because it's short and pointless Plutonia Favorite: map 23 because it feels like The Shores of Hell on steroids Least Favorite: map 31, because it's basically doing the same Cyberdemon fight 4 times in a row + some uninspired progression in between. Arguably the least inspired of all official secret maps. (together with E4M9)

How about Hellscape by Christopher Lutz?

My sincere apologies for misgendering a map author, I corrected my post.