Polri

The cyberdemon appearing like in an old-school magic trick in speed of doom map 24. Made me smile when I played it the first time.

Really enjoyed playing through this episode! One nitpick though: one aspect that didn't feel "the way ID did" to me, was the fact that you actually had to fight several of the cyberdemons. As far as I can tell, the only ID cyberdemon you have to fight is the E2 boss. All the other ones, both in Doom 1 and Doom 2, are either optional or involve something that helps you defeat them without actually having to "fight" them. E3M9: invuln E4M2: telefrag or just ignore E4M6: invuln (secret route) E4M7: optional M8: let the barons do the job + invuln M10: invuln (secret) M32: invuln (secret) M20: stab him in the back while he conveniently kills the spiderdemon for you M29: run! So ID cyberdemons are mostly presented as "puzzles": how should I overcome this monster without actually having to fight it? Maybe I've missed some secret or walkaround, but the cyberdemon fights in E4M1, E4M6 and E4M8 (the first one) of this wad all seemed non-skippable to me?

It's not only the last of the classic megawads, it's also in some ways the first of the modern megawads. It introduces some "modern" tropes like 100% pistol start compatibility, natural "earh" atmosphere (rocks, water...) in the second half of the first episode, episode 3 as the hell episode with slaughter maps in the latter half, map 31 as a concept map versus map 32 as a pure slaughter map (granted, this was already done in Plutonia) etc.

Mount pain

2002 ADO: Arrive in a hub room with 3 locked key doors and 1 open door. Find red key. Return to hub. Open red key door. Find yellow key. Return to hub. Open yellow key door. Find blue key. Return to hub. Open blue key door. Go to exit. Repeat for 30+ levels. BTSX1: already tried to go through it twice, but I lose interest halfway because everything looks the same. (love BTSX2 though) The Russian community megawads (Sacrament, A.L.T. ...) always seem to have a few levels that are just too weird or confusing for me, making me ragequit the wad once I reach those

Shipping / Respawning - most random mapname in the Iwads The final frontier Rainbow Bridge - no obvious rainbow or bridge in this level, but still feels like a legit name for this gigantic colourful castle Rattamahatta - sounds really cool and memorable + one of those levels that does nonlinearity really well Nectar of the Gods Dreamscape + those cool alliterations in Alien Vendetta: Rusty Rage, Toxic Touch, Overwhelming Odds, Killer Colours, Dark Dome ...

The two "secret" levels in E3 from No End In Sight. E3M5 has that weird, threatening, abstract atmosphere, and E3M6 has excellent hellish visuals.

I really like the text file included with Deus Vult 2, which includes elaborate explanations about the levels, lots of random stuff and doom wisdoms like "windows are multiplicators of detail".

Sunlust?

One way to give continuous players and pistol starters a different experience, is to drop the "provide only ammo for weapons availiable in the map" rule that most mappers adhere to. For instance, if map 8 has a (secret) BFG, map 9 could be a map with a challenging Cyberdemon, where you get a rocket launcher but no BFG (for pistol starters) but still have some cell ammo (for continuous players). That way both types of players get the experience they prefer: continuous players are rewarderd for their carry-overs, while pistol-started receive a slightly more challenging "each map as its own adventure" experience. The way I see it, that's how the IWADS were built: the rocket launcher in MAP01 or the BFG in E3M3 are useless within those levels, but come in handy in the following levels, rewarding exploration throughout levels, instead of only within them. Off course, in that case mappers should make it clear in the .txt file that this is how it works in their wad, to avoid having pistol-starters wasting time searching for weapons which simply aren't provided in the map.