These author notes are split into two sections.

Section 1 provides a brief overview of the theme of each episode of the WAD, 
the use of textures and flats to support that theme, and some MILD SPOILERS
about the monsters and weapon types used.

Section 2 provides detailed comments about the concepts and ideas behind each
individual map in the set.  That means there are LOTS OF SPOILERS.




************************ Section 1 : Episode Structure ************************

Doom404 is split into three episodes.


Episode 1: Real Life
Maps: 01-06
This episode is set in the 'real world' of the UAC technology complex.  To
emphasise that this is a physical location, every map includes at least a 
view of the sky, and most allow the player to venture outdoors.
Visually these maps combine brick, technology and outdoor textures to
provide something close to the typical 'Doom techbase' vibe.  The only
liquid flat used is water, which is never harmful.
This episode does not use any 'cybernetic' enemies, or cell-based weapons.
It also does not feature any teleporters.  This was done to emphasise that
this is the flesh and bone world.
Map names generally refer to physical locations or to the kind of things
IT Help Desk folks would talk about.


Episode 2: Virtual Life
Maps: 07-20, 31, 32
The longest episode of Doom404 is set within the electronic confines of the
UAC computer system.  To emphasise that this is an 'unreal' environment,
NO maps in this chapter feature a sky.
Texture use in this chapter is deliberately varied from map to map and
often deliberately diverse within a single map, too.  Just about any theme
is possible - though overt hellscapes are omitted - but you will always find
some technological textures somewhere in each map.  You are, after all,
inside a computer!
Liquid flats used are slime (never harmful) and nukage (always harmful).
This episode uses all monsters other than the Cyberdemon, and all weapons.
Map names generally refer to the inner workings of software such as
operating systems, or of computers themselves.


Episode 3: After Life
Maps: 21-30
This episode takes the battle into the Stygian realms of the demons.  As you
are back in a 'real' non-virtual realm at this time, all maps feature at
least a view of the sky, as with episode 1.
Visually these maps always contain some measure of 'hellish' textures, though
technology is interspersed within them.  Hell has launched a cybernetic
invasion after all, so it stands to reason they'd have plenty of technological
resources.
Liquid flats used are blood (never harmful) and lava (always harmful).
This episode uses all monsters other than Keens and SS, and all weapons.
Map names are generally bad puns about computer terms. :)




*********************** Section 2 : Map by Map Comments ***********************

Each map in Doom 404 is built around a specific concept or set of concepts.
This might be the introduction of new monsters or new weapons, or featuring 
a specific enemy type.  It might be a particular kind of encounter or other
Doom engine mechanic.  It might be something to do with the layout ... but
basically the long and the short of it is that each map has a thematic core
to it.  That was part of the reason for the 404 line limit: by restricting 
myself that way, it helped me to focus on the core idea of the level.
Maps are discussed in *play order*, so 31 and 32 are discussed between maps
15 and 16, not at the end.

Reminder: LOTS OF SPOILERS below.


Map01: Trouble Ticket
I wanted to kick off with a silent opener; something to model the player, in
their role as a UAC IT guy, turning up for a routine job only to find that
something was very, very wrong.  I even worked in a mini 'jump scare' moment.
Obviously this means the map doesn't have much replay value; unless you do it
solonet style that is.  I figured that there wouldn't be as much atmosphere
in a co-op game so it was better just to give you stuff to shoot :)
As an additional note, this map, map07, and map30 each have only one secret;
all the other maps have three each.


Map02: Bad Signal
This map introduces the shotgun, sergeant and imps.  My key design concept was
to include lots of crossfire opportunities, which is why most areas of the map
have windows that look into other parts of the map.
This map has the first key door of the WAD, so of course I made it red as a 
nod to e1m2.


Map03: PEBKAC
I figured it was time to give the player some more outdoor action, so this map
gives us some canyon and cave style areas.  It also brings the HK and the demon
to the dance.  I tried to give both new monsters a chance to shine.  Since 
they are pretty tiresome enemies to kill with the pistol and and normal shotgun,
this map also marks the debut of the SSG.
Mmmm, the sweet, sweet SSG.


Map04: System Access
This map introduces both the chaingunners and the chaingun, as well as
everyone's favourite troll monster, the spectre.  The latter enemy prompted me
to include a major battle in an area with dim and flickering lighting, because
it so suits that enemy.  This in turn prompted the inclusion of a secret with
light amp goggles - not a power-up that gets used much, but one I figured
would be of value here!


Map05: Server Room
The theme here is jumping and flying.  The map introduces cacos and lost souls
as enemies, and requires the 404-Guy to do some 'flying' of his own with a
few parkour antics.  This is the only map in episode one where there is no
outdoor area you can enter, though you can see the outdoors from the latter
half of the level.
The rocket launcher makes its first appearance here, just try not to use it
right as a lost soul gets in your face :)


Map06: Interface
With the arrival of the pain elemental we reach the final map in episode 1.  I
centred this level around a large courtyard with walls around it, because I do
love the visual of flying monsters rising up and over barriers like that.  This
is definitely a map where you'll want to get a handle on the PEs quickly, or 
they can really make your life difficult!
At the climax of the map the player enters the cybernetic realm through which
the demons have entered our world.  This is represented by a death exit (after
all, your accumulated gear is all back in the physical realm!). 


Map07: Firewall
On one level, this is pretty obviously 'yet another Dead Simple clone', though
I think it has a sting in the tail that gives it some character of its own.  It
also has a deliberately diverse and eclectic collection of textures, including
the wonder that is fireblu.  I really wanted to make the start of the new
episode feel starkly different in look and feel to the first episode.
Obviously, since this is map07, it is time for the Macubus and Arachnotron to
join the menagerie of enemies.


Map08: Random Access
I wanted to continue the theme of somewhat electic texture selection here,
which is why you see modwall and dingy brick used in close quarters.  It was
fun to get a bit Petersen-y with my texturing.
No new monsters or weapons make an appearance here.  Instead the gameplay
element which I play with is the old "swarm of monsters teleport in".  I
deliberately omitted using such mechanics up to this point.
I included multiple teleport destinations in the hope that the exact location
in which the monsters arrive will vary depending on the player's actions (thus
tying back to the 'random access' name).


Map09: Hard Drive
It's time for Barons to make an appearance, and obviously part of what I wanted
to do with this map was find a way to make a feature encounter with them that
was actually fun to play.  Not an easy task given that they're slow and have
a tediously large amount of health!
Part of the solution is to give the player more firepower, so the plasma gun
finally shows up here.
Looks wise this map is more consistently-themed, with a stone and marble motif
dominating large sections, but there are also technological sections to reflect
the cyberspace theme.


Map10: FAT32
This map is all about mancubi, because puns are *awesome*.  Particularly when
they are awful.  It was also a bit of an experiment in terms of implementing
difficulty settings since the monster count is the same in all cases: it's the
amount of health and ammo that varies.
We're back to some of those deliberately clashing textural choices here, though
I promise this is actually toned down from the first version, which was even
more garish!


Map11: Infinite Loop
Some time ago I did a 'Circle of Death' style map for a speedmapping session,
using an infinity-symbol instead of a circle.  I wasn't really happy with the
outcome though, so I decided to make a second stab at the concept here in
Doom404.  I like this much better.
I should probably warn you that this level is a significant spike in difficulty
from the average for the mapset.  There may be a point where you think the 
'Infinite' part of the name has nothing to do with the layout, is all I'll say
here. :)


Map12: Machine Code
Making Doom maps is a pretty nerdy thing to do, I think, and this may be the
nerdiest map layout I've ever made.  Let's just say the level title here is as
much of a pun as FAT32 was, and leave it at that.
The goofy layout shenanigans aside, this level introduces the revenant, an 
enemy I deliberately set out not to overuse in this set, due to the way they
tend to get spammed around in modern WADs.  Which I understand, because they
are highly mobile and have a good range of attacks.  I just wanted to be a bit
different!


Map13: Bugged
The puns continue, as this map features Arachnotrons as a major enemy type.
The sheer size of these guys can make them quite tough to use in maps, so it
was fun to try and think of a layout that would be interesting to use them in,
especially since I wanted to avoid the old standby of 'distant sniper'.


Map14: Recycle Bin
Finally, the Arch-Vile arrives in Doom404.  Like the revenant, I think this 
fellow tends to get a little overused, so I wanted to use them sparingly in
the mapset as a whole.  In this map, however, they should have something of
a chance to shine.  It is their debut, after all!
This map also features a rather goofy (but potentially dangerous for all that)
opening encounter.  Mmmm, squishy!


Map15: Password Protected
The key concept for this level was to represent the map title by having the
secret exit behind a (simple) logic puzzle.  So it is not enough just to have
sharp eyes, you need a sharp mind.
Oh, okay, you don't need all that sharp a mind, really.  This is Doom after
all, not Puzzle Agent.  It's pretty easy to brute force a solution if you
have any patience, and I may even have included a hint for you somewhere in
the map ...


Map31: Nazi Shooter!
I've never liked the randomness of Doom 2's secrets levels featuring
Wolfenstein stuff, so one of the things that appealed to me about having a
'go into cyberspace' episode within this WAD was that it finally gave an
in-game reason for there to be a Wolfenstein map.  It also meant I got to play
with a whole bunch of textures I'd never really used before.
Best of all, it presented me with an opportunity to be quite nerdy.  You see,
I didn't want to just do an actual, flat Wolf3d map here, but nor did I want
to offer nothing more than a Doom 2 map with different textures.  So I came up
with a set of rules about how levels were made in this fictional 'Nazi Shooter!'
game, and then stuck to them, at least in terms of what the player can see.  
These rules were basically that the game's levels were constructed by placing 
128 x 128 x 128 cubes, and then painting the visible sides with a texture.  That
meant that you couldn't have doors (since they'd look odd being 128 thick!) but
you could have elevators.
This is the result.


Map32: Thule
As much fun as I had making 'Nazi Shooter!', I figured the gag was only good
for one map, so this level quickly transitions into standard Doom 2.  Other
than that, it's just pretty much straight up run and gun arena-style action.


Map16: DeFrag
As is obvious when you play it, this map is deliberately evoking e1m1, which is
not as easy as it sounds when you only have 404 lines and can't use sky
textures!  The BFG in the nukage pool is probably a hint that things aren't as
Knee Deep in the Dead as they appear to be.
I'm inordinately fond of the SSG secret in this map.  It's accessible in two
different ways, one of them much earlier than the other, but it requires a bit
more lateral thinking to get it via the faster route.


Map17: CPU
The concept for this map is that the player is now in the very core of the UAC
computer system.  It therefore has a highly technological theme to the texture
selection.  It's also the logical time to debut the Spider Mastermind, who is
lurking in cyberspace to oversee the demonic plan.  Or at least, that's the
story as it exists in my head!


Map18: Bad Sector
This map features damaging floors as a major motif.  Damaging floors are of
course bad sectors to be standing in, and we thus have yet more Doom punnage to
chuckle or groan over.
I'm fond of one of the secrets in this map as rather than containing a power-up
or weapon it provides the player with a key, instead.  You don't need to 
have the key to finish the map - mandatory secrets are not cool - but having
it allows you to get a much more tactically advantageous position in one of
the main fights for the level.


Map19: Crash
My interpretation of the 'Crash' concept of this map was crushers, which to
this point had not been used in the WAD.  That changes here, I assure you,
though it's perhaps not such a bad thing as you might expect.
As this was a map with sectors changing in a new way, I also thought it
would be fun to have a room in the level completely transform between the
first and second times the player visits it.  That required the flow of the
map to be quite linear for the most part, but I think it's worked quite
well overall.


Map20: Portal
This map is built around the exit, which is immediately *visible* to the
player (and delightfully ugly it is too, to my mind), but very far from
being *accessible*.
Visually I wanted to represent the idea of a location that had been
wracked by some kind of earthquake, or perhaps simply allowed to collapse
into ruin for a long time.  I think it looks pretty neat.
At the climax of the map the player enters the hellish dimension from which
the demons originate.  This is represented by a death exit (after all, your
gear at this point is all virtual, not real). 


Map21: Daemon
We're back in a physical location again, which is why this map prominently
features outdoor areas, but it is also still a whole other dimension to the
'real' world, as presented by the very different texture selections compared
to episode one.
The cyberdemon finally makes his appearance here.  I generally have not
used boss monsters much in Doom404 since they have enough health that they
can take some time to kill, but I wanted to make sure the big bruiser got
at least one showing, and his location in this map makes him a constant
presence in the map (though also potentially an inadvertent ally for a 
canny player!).


Map22: Terrorbyte
This map is about dark places, spectres, and being short of all ammo other
than rockets.  Because I am sometimes a jerk. :)


Map23: Biomatrix
I wanted to do a map using a combo of flesh and technology textures (a motif
I first tried in Demonfear), and having done so, I decided to also make the
monster load-out have a fleshy kind of vibe to it ... though one additional
constraint on that was to avoid using monsters I planned to feature heavily
in the next map.
Since Arch-Viles were one of the monsters that I thought matched the theme
of the map, I tried to make sure that the various rooms - especially the
larger ones - had some options for cover in them, while also providing
lots of options for how said AVs could roam around.


Map24: Sintax
I thought I was very funny when I came up with all the punny names for this
episode of the WAD, but one of the things I quickly discovered is that those
names didn't as easily translate into map concepts as did those of the first
two episodes.  I mean, "Sintax" doesn't immediately conjure a particular
architectural or gameplay element that might be associated with it.  So I
thought "well, maybe it's time to just do a straight up rocky red hell map"
and then I thought "and what if that red map was full of red monsters?"
and you got this little charmer.
At one point, I considered using *only* chaingunners and my beloved cacos,
but ultimately I decided to sprinkle in a small selection of other enemies
to provide a bit more tactical variety.


Map25: Hexadeathimal
Using word play on hexadecimal for the map's name obviously led to thoughts
of using hexagonal shapes in the map layout.  Technically 16-sided shapes
would probably be more apropos to the base of the pun, but I'm on a line
budget here!
I decided to emphasise use of the BFG on this map for two reasons: first
because the player was only just getting the weapon again, after losing it
at the start of this episode.  Second, because I've not really done a
"mostly just the BFG" map before.
Since I wanted to push all players - continuous and pistol start alike -
toward using the BFG, I decided to leave only a very limited amount of
other ammo in the map (though finding secrets can offset this somewhat),
which means the opening of the map can optionally be a semi-Tyson style 
of thing.


Map26: EnCryption
The puntastic title of this map put me in mind of a tomb-themed setting,
and also of some kind of puzzle-based gameplay.  That's traditionally 
meant "switch hunt" in Doom, but that is not something I much enjoy, myself,
so I tried to do something a bit more logic-themed (as I did with map15).
Oh, and monster-wise it seemed obvious to me what kind of enemies should
predominate in a crypt or tomb type setting ... 


Map27: Demesne
I originally intended to make this an arachnotron heavy map, but then I used
quite a few of them (plus a mama spider) in map 25, so I had to have a bit
of a re-think on that front.  There are still a few of the baby spiders in
the map, but it's a much more varied monster palette than originally planned.
Overall, I rather like how this map - the design brief for which was "big hell
fortress" came out.  I like the way the PE/Caco "bays" look, and I think the
various waves of enemies provide for fun scrambling as they come in from a
range of different vectors.


Map28: Icon
So pretty much the only thing I had in mind for this map when I started it was
that I wanted the Icon of Sin "wall" to loom over the map, and the objective
of the map to be to "get inside" it.  The looming part required that the map
revolved around a large courtyard, and in order to maximise the focus on that
courtyard, while staying true to the "get inside" concept as well, this is
one of the few Doom404 maps to have "tennis" style progression where you run
to one end of the map, grab a key; run to the other side of the map; grab 
another key; then run all the way back again.
I made the plasma gun a focal weapon for this map mostly because I hadn't
previously done so in the set.


Map29: Hellmaker
For those that don't know, Hellmaker was a 90s level editor for the Mac.  And
yes, that does mean that this level is an answer to the question asked in the
in-game text at the end of map20 :)
This is the monster spawner map for Doom 404, which presented some challenges
as the spawner has some behaviour that only works on map30, and I needed to
plan for not having it.
Also, I didn't want to make a map that was about shooting rockets into a hole
in a wall.  I seem to have not entirely escaped the 'shooting a wall' concept,
to be honest, but at least it's a bit different from the normal IoS.  Because
of that difference, I included a mandatory section earlier in the map with a 
similar mechanic so that it should be pretty obvious what to do in the final
fight.
NOTE: due to limitations of the Doom engine, it is possible for monsters to
get stuck in each other in this map.  I've tried to avoid it happening as
much as I can, but it's impossible to 100% avoid.  This is also noted in the
'bugs' section of the text file, but wanted to mention it here as well, in
case you're reading this, but didn't read that.


Map30: Terminal
I wanted to deliberately evoke memories of the 'silent' opener with this map,
though when the monsters finally do turn up in this one, you can be sure it's
not just a few troopers who come out to welcome you!
