===========================================================================
                      (Doom Minor Sprite Fix Recommended)
===========================================================================
Version                 : v1.3
Advanced engine needed  : Doom.exe (Version 1.666) or compatible ports
Primary purpose         : Single
===========================================================================
Title                   : RUST: TRIPTYCH
Filename                : RUST.WAD, RUST.DEH, CODEX.EXE
Release date            : 10/06/2026
Author                  : Arsinikk
Email Address		    : me@andrikpowell.com
Other Files By Author   : Line Massacre Series (with NinjaDelphox),
                          Hell Revealations,
                          Hellcinerator (Corruption),
                          Boxcutter,
                          Purple Rain
Misc. Author Info       : Arsinikk is an expert at petting llamas.

Description             : RUST: TRIPTYCH is a 90s inspired project that
                          aims to combine the early wad aesthetics and weirdness
						  from early 90s wads (like D!Zone) with the modern
						  progression and fast action-packed pacing similar to
						  wads like Scythe.
						  
						  RUST has three episodes (The Infernal Machine, Jaws
						  of the Earth, and E\/3NT H0R120N) that are vastly
						  different from one another, hence being a TRIPTYCH.

                          The WAD has been designed to work with Doom 1 version
                          1.666 (with DeHackEd). It is NOT compatible with the
                          Ultimate Doom EXE, as it relies on multiple "bossdeaths"
                          on E1M8.

                          *****  USE [-COMPLEVEL 1] TO PLAY RUST  *****
                          ************  SOFTWARE RENDERING  ***********

                          It is designed primarily for singleplayer.
                          All skills are implemented. A "New Game Plus" difficulty
                          is included that uses UV Coop placement (-solo-net).
						  It is NOT recommended for a first playthrough.

                          There is a super secret non-secret weapon in
                          every map!
						    - 5th weapon for episode 1
							- 6th weapon for episode 2
							- 7th weapon for episode 3


===========================================================================

* Credits *

Mapping				: Arsinikk
                      Large Cat (E2MX)
					  Scypek2 (E3M4)

Playtesting and		: finnks13
quality control	      Large Cat
                      NinjaDelphox
                      Rencoret
				      galileo31dos01
					  Hayden49
					  Christophine Place
					  FrancisT218
					  scwiba

Graphics, Palette   : Arsinikk

DeHackEd            : Arsinikk

ENDOOM              : Zokum

CODEX               : Arsinikk
                          
===========================================================================

* What is included *

New levels              : 27
Sounds                  : Yes
Music                   : Yes
Graphics                : Yes
Dehacked/BEX Patch      : Yes
Demos                   : Yes
Other                   : No
Other files required    : No (use both RUST.WAD and RUST.DEH
                          for Vanilla/Chocolate Doom)


* Play Information *

Game                    : Doom
Map #                   : E1M1-E3M9
Single Player           : Designed for
Cooperative 2-4 Player  : Not Designed for
Deathmatch 2-4 Player   : No
Other game styles       : Speedrunning
Other mods              : No
Difficulty Settings     : Yes


* Construction *

Base                    : New from scratch

Build Time              : Three years for WAD and CODEX application programming / design.

Editor(s) used          : Ultimate Doom Builder, Slade3, Adobe Photoshop,
                          WhackEd4, Dehacked, Game Maker 8.1

Known Bugs              : - E1M7, E1M8, E2M6, E3M5 will cause a crash when saving in Vanilla (Savegame Buffer Overflow).
                          - E*M8 maps will have full volume sounds throughout the whole level in Vanilla (This is intentional Bugged Behaviour)
                          - "New Game Plus" ignores some Vanilla limits such as the sprite limit and savegame buffer.
                          - Woof-based ports will mostly work with RUST under complevel 2.
                          - Crispy Doom has an issue where it allows the player to switch back to the SSG slot in Doom 1.
                          - Only for UZDoom. Older ZDoom ports are NOT supported.
                          - E1M7 and E2M2 do not look correct in GZDoom when using Hardware Acceleration.
                              It's recommended to use the Doom Software Renderer.
Tested With             : Nyan Doom, Vanilla Doom v1.666 (DOS), Chocolate Doom, Crispy Doom, CRL,
                          DSDA Doom (-complevel 1), PRBoom Plus (-complevel 1), Woof, Nugget Doom,
                          UZDoom, Eternity Engine


* Copyright / Permissions *

Authors MAY use the contents of this file as a base for modification or reuse
when using proper credit. Permissions have been obtained from original authors
for any of their resources modified or included in this file.

You MAY distribute this file, provided you include this text file, with no
modifications.  You may distribute this file in any electronic format (BBS,
Diskette, CD, etc) as long as you include this file intact.  I have
received permission from the original authors of any modified or included
content in this file to allow further distribution.

* Where to get the file that this text file describes *

The Usual: ftp://archives.3dgamers.com/pub/idgames/ and mirrors


===========================================================================


===========================================================================


                         ____   __  __ _____ ______ 
                        / __ \ / / / // ___//_  __/
                       / /_/ // / / / \__ \  / /
                      / _, _// /_/ / ___/ / / /
                     /_/ |_| \____/ /____/ /_/
				   
                      T  R  I  P  T  Y  C  H
					 


--------------------BY ARSINIKK (ANDRIK POWELL)--------------------


=================
TABLE OF CONTENTS
=================

1.  INTRODUCTION            6.  EPISODE I INSPIRATION
                         
2.  COMPATIBILITY           7.  EPISODE II INSPIRATION

3.  STORY / CODEX           8.  EPISODE III INSPIRATION

4.  INSTALLATION            9.  LEVEL INFORMATION / COMMENTARY

5.  NEW GAME PLUS          10.  CREDITS

                           11.  KNOWN BUGS



================
[1] INTRODUCTION
================

  RUST: TRIPTYCH is a 90s inspired project that
  aims to combine the early wad aesthetics and weirdness
  from early 90s wads (like D!Zone) with the modern
  progression and fast action-packed pacing similar to
  wads like Scythe.
						  
  RUST has three episodes (The Infernal Machine, Jaws
  of the Earth, and E\/3NT H0R120N) that are vastly
  different from one another, hence being a TRIPTYCH.
  
  It is designed primarily for singleplayer.
  All skills are implemented. A "New Game Plus" difficulty
  is included that uses UV Coop placement. It is NOT
  recommended for a first playthrough.

  There is a super secret non-secret weapon in
  every map:
    - E1: hidden 5th weapon
    - E2: hidden 6th weapon
	- E3: hidden 7th weapon


=================
[2] COMPATIBILITY
=================

  The WAD has been designed to work with Doom 1 version 1.666 (with DeHackEd).
  It is NOT compatible with the Ultimate Doom EXE, as it relies on E1M8
  behaviour that's since patched in the Ultimate Doom.

  The Ultimate Doom IWAD however is compatible with modern source ports,
  just as long as you run it with the -complevel 1 command.

  RUST was developed using "Nyan Doom", but was tested in DOS Doom v1.666.

  RUST will work in UZDoom. Older ZDoom versions are NOT supported.
  The Eternity Engine should also work.

  ZDaemon does not currently work due some font graphics being replaced.


=================
[3] STORY / CODEX
=================

   RUST comes with a complimentary LORE CODEX EXE that includes a bunch of
   story and lore about the world or RUST.

   Note that a riddle / meta game must be completed to find the passcode to
   open the Codex. This riddle / meta game can be solved by playing through
   RUST and viewing the "Read This!"

   A second riddle / meta game must be solved to unlock "level 2 access" in
   the Codex application. A hint is given in the CODEX once it is unlocked.


================
[4] INSTALLATION
================

Recommended source port:     - Nyan Doom (developed by the wad author)

For source ports:            - RUST.wad (-complevel 1). DEHACKED is directly
		   	                   embedded in the wad file.

                             - RUSTMUS.WAD is optional for those who are concerned
                               about copyright (mostly YouTubers. Streamers should be ok)

For Chocolate/Crispy Doom:   - Use RUST.WAD (-gameversion 1.666). DEHACKED is directly
		   	                   embedded in the wad file, but you can also use RUST.DEH.
			  			  
For Vanilla Doom/MS-DOS:     - You must patch your own Doomhack.exe yourself
			                   with Dehacked - RUST.DEH (version 1.666 of Doom.exe is required)


=================
[5] NEW GAME PLUS
=================

  RUST comes with a "New Game Plus" difficulty.
  To access "New Game Plus", just use (-coop_spawns) or (-solonet) on the Ultra-Violence skill.

  Nyan Doom and GZDoom have "New Game Plus" available in the difficulty select.

  Note that "New Game Plus" is NOT recommended for a first playthrough. It relies on previous
  knowledge of how the maps work and it is extremely difficult on purpose. It has however been
  tested and is possible to beat.



=======================
[6] EPISODE I INSPIRATION
=======================

  I've always been enamored from early Doom WADs from the 90s. Back then, Doom WADs didn't really have
  the standards and expectations that they have now. The standards part can really be a mixed bag, with
  some maps are fun to play... while others being very painful. The expectations part though... I think
  there's alot of interesting perspectives to see in early Doom WADs, that you just don't see in the
  modern Doom landscape. Some obscure progression or interesting mapping tricks and encounters can often
  be found in early WADs. I thought it would be interesting to tap into that, while also bringing a modern
  spin for the combat.

  I came across the YouTube channel Spectere (https://www.youtube.com/@Spectere), a few months ago with his
  D!ZONE'D series. And the most interesting part of it was that some of the maps had some really cool and
  interesting ideas. Early WADs often had alot of baggage with them; occasionally boring combat, obscure
  progression or design, etc. But there were defintiely some ideas that felt untapped. So for RUST, I thought
  I would take some of these interesting scenarios and bring them up to modern gameplay standards.

  Regarding the aesthetic of RUST, I've always been a huge fan of Scythe and its short but fast paced maps.
  One thing that always stuck out to me was how poor some of the texture alignment was in Scythe. It really 
  was a speedmapping project. I do think the rain aesthetic (which is present in every map) does add a certain
  uniqueness to the project and helps it stand out.

  For RUST, I wanted to take this speedmapping idea to the next level. At first, I decided that I wasn't going
  to align any textures at all. I thought this would help me focus on making fast paced maps without bothering
  with the "baggage" of alignment and detail. This also would help give an early 90s feel to RUST, since many
  early 90s WADs didn't spend that much time aligning textures as we do now. To help with this, I actually set
  Ultimate Doom Builder to never auto-align textures, and to reset the X and Y alignment whenever there was
  a linedef split to ensure every alignment in the WAD was manual.

  Rencoret eventually convinced me to do a tiny bit of texture alignment to make things looks slightly
  better. One of the big things I wanted to keep though, were the unpegged door/doortrack textures. Many 90s
  WADs had these, and tbh I actually don't mind when actually doortrack moves with the door. I remember on
  my first map "Purple Rain", everyone in the community said it was bad practice, but I do wonder if it's
  really that big of a deal if it's consistent in the WAD. (Also just wanted to mention alot of door side
  textures in this WAD are pegged on purpose besides Doortrack. This is done badly on purpose for the 90s
  aesthetic, and I do not think it is something I would do in other projects).

  For the most part in this project, every map was made in sequential order. So this means E1M1 was the first
  map made. RUST was started as a project to kinda ease my way back into the mapping spirit. Previously after
  managing "Hell Revealations", I was feeling a bit burnt out. So I thought I'd do a short little project to
  get those mapping gears moving again. Even though I'd consider RUST to be heavily inspired by Scythe, it does
  have some 90s and my own influences interspersed throughout. I'm a big fan of puzzles, and so even E1M1's
  first room's mini puzzle screams like something I'd do. Techbase is a theme that I don't usually dabble in,
  so it was a bit interesting to use that as the main focus for Episode 1.

  The other big goal with pretty much all of the maps in RUST, is I wanted the maps to be able to completed
  extremely fast. You can see this in the WAD's partimes, that many maps can be beaten in under 2 minutes,
  or often under a minute, if you know what you're doing. In addition there are fun little things to note
  about every map: 1) every map has a berserk somewhere in the map, and 2) every map has a super secret
  non-secret rocket launcher hidden in the map. Note that the super secret rocket launchers are meant to be
  very hard to find / acquire and most players will not find them on a first playthrough.



=======================
[7] EPISODE II INSPIRATION
=======================

  Around six months after the first Episode of RUST, I felt it was time to revisit the project and bring
  about Episode II. It was convenient timing too, as NanoWADMo was about to start, and so I decided to
  not waste this opportunity to get some heavy work done for RUST's next installment. Interestingly enough,
  by this point, I had a good idea of what I was envisioning for Episode II, even right down to the name:
  "Jaws of the Earth".

  The idea for Episode II was to go with more natural environments, to juxtapose against the techbase-laden
  corridors of the first episode. I really felt that a change of theme would work well to both distinguish
  the episode, as well as to tap into some of the other D!ZONE style maps. While D!ZONE maps did typically
  go with the techbase style (although let's be super real here, most 90s maps are just a bunch of themes
  thrown together :P), I wanted to embrace something more akin to some of the Spectere videos I saw of
  MEMPHIS.WAD, THE_GRID.WAD, CLIFF.WAD, and WARZONE4.WAD. With further inspiration came from 90s WADs like
  SANDSDTH.WAD (which I used some textures from :D).

  The main idea was to focus on using techbase textures such as electronic doors, and instead using things
  like marble faces to "represent" doors. Another big change was to focus more on diagonal and
  non-perpendicular lined map layouts to feel more natural and less "constructed" (although a few maps do
  kinda lean closer to the old design like E2M4, even though that's meant to be more of a "hell factory"
  rather than a techbase). Interestingly enough, I thought that Episode II was gonna look closer to E1MX's
  kind of map layout design, but it seemed to evolve into something slightly different.

  There are a couple differences between RUST E1 and E2, besides the theme change. First E2 includes a few
  new textures that stray from Doom's stock textures. During the development of E2, I had been playing a
  lot of early 90s WADs, which led me to admiring the custom textures included in those WADs. Then the
  thought occurred to me... What better way to emulate 90s textures, then to actually use those textures.
  Many of the 90s WADs, I played which gave me lots of inspiration (and perhaps a few textures) were
  Cleimos II, Aliens TC, Osiris, Obituary, Galaxia, Slaughter Until Death, Enslavement, Eye of the Beholder
  I/II, and possibly more. It's important to note that I've already played many of the classic 90s WADs
  such as Memento Mori I/II, Eternal Doom, The Rebirth, The Talosian Incident, Alien Vendetta, STRAIN, etc.
  As a result, I think that E2 is not only influenced by D!ZONE WADs, but also early 90s MEGAWADs as well.

  While some of RUST E2's maps are not as D!ZONE as E1's maps, I do think there are still some early 90s-isms
  that can be found within it. As per the rules, I did not attempt to align most textures, and if I did, it
  was done so manually. I think my favourite map showing the weird 90s progression has to be E2M2. It has the
  weirdest most awkward progression ever, and I think that sort of progression would fit perfectly amongst
  other D!ZONE maps.

  Something that I had been planning to do at the start of RUST, was to utilise Doom 1.666's access to Doom II's
  extra Dehacked states and things slots. The idea was always to use these extra Dehacked states and codepointers
  to create a whole new "strain" (lol joke) of demons. As you can see from my previous joke, it does kinda make
  RUST E2 feel a little bit more like STRAIN, with the added bestiary. Of course, I had a tiny bit of this
  showcased in E1MX of RUST E1, but that was only 1 new enemy. RUST E2 would expand this to include a whole
  new enemy roster.

  My thought process on creating new monsters is probably quite different than most Doom mappers. I don't
  want to create just another enemy that players have seen before. I want to create a monster that's truly
  unique and actually contributes something to the "combat puzzle". It should be no surprise, with Scythe
  being my favourite WAD, that combat is what I consider to be the most important part of a Doom map.
  It's actually one of the reasons I started RUST, as I felt that mappers and players put too much emphasis
  on a map's visuals, while de-emphasising the combat and/or level "flow".

  The hardest part of creating RUST E2's monsters, was that I wanted to avoid re-making Doom II monsters.
  What's the point of adding a new monster in Doom, if it's just a Doom II monster. At that point, it'd
  be better just to make a Doom II WAD. Working with a Doom I WAD gave me a unique opportunity to not
  have to worry about trying to keep Doom II enemies, and instead focus on creating something new and
  unique. I think my favourite new monster has to be the one in E2M3, which you'll know what monster it
  is when you get to it. I don't think I've ever seen a custom monster that behaves in that particular way.

  Another interesting thing players will learn immediately is that E2 is very much focused on introducing
  new bestiary each map. This includes the Toximp showing in many of the maps, just to cement it's place as
  a now regular enemy. E1 was very much focused on introducing an enemy for each map from the Doom roster.
  E2 is essentially doing the same thing, except that most of the enemies are unique and so players really
  don't have any idea what to expect from them. Each map usually has a fight or encounter to teach the player
  about what their new foes do, and how to fight them.

  Story-wise, it was really fun to work with E2. I loved the idea of this new bestiary not all being demons,
  but instead mutations caused by a "natural" cause. It also creates this interesting comparison between the
  mutations and demons, as the mutated monsters are almost more threatening and dangerous than the demons.
  I think it's something quite unique to Doom and I don't think we really get to see monsters that aren't
  just demons.



=======================
[8] EPISODE III INSPIRATION
=======================

  And so yet another year passes around, and I've gotta start working on the third and final chapter of RUST.
  I really wanted the third episode to stand out on its own from the previous episodes. Episode 1 was much
  closer to Doom 1 in terms of monster placement and techbases. Episode 2 added a chaotic element to the combat
  with new STRAIN-like enemies, accompanied by visually distinct map themes. Episode 3 needed to be something
  different. Most mappers would tend to make the final episode of a megawad bigger, with larger maps with harder
  and slaughtery combat. I mean just look at Scythe or Scythe II... The problem is that doing more slaughter would
  potentially make episode 3 feel like a continuation of episode 2. For some wads this wouldn't be a problem, but
  for RUST, it kinda goes against what RUST is about.
  
  Not only would doing slaughter make it harder to deal with Vanilla Doom limits such as the 128 sprite limit, it
  would also not feel very distinct. Every RUST episode is supposed to feel like its own wad almost. And so I decided
  to go into the more obscure and puzzle aspect. I still wouldn't say I went too far with most of the puzzles. After
  all, I kinda want RUST to be accessible over some more challenge / hardcore focused wads. I think when I say puzzles,
  I mean its more like the maps put you into abnormal situations. One of the things I really wanted to hone in on, is
  forcing the player to play the map differently. Episode 1 is very much like "this plays like Doom". Episode 2 is like
  "this is Doom, but more chaotic". Episode 3 aims to ask the questions: "is this how you're supposed to play the map?"
  and "is this really Doom?". I want the player to get thrown out of their comfort zone of how Doom usually plays and
  experience what happens when you stop thinking about playing a Doom map, and instead playing an experience in Doom.
  
  Originally, I didn't think I was gonna add anymore extra monsters, because after Episode 2's enemy roster, I thought
  I ran out of Dehacked to use. But luckily enough, I was able to move some stuff around, and fit in quite a few new
  enemies. It's funny to think how RUST being a Doom 1 wad has more enemies than even Doom II. This did require me to
  get more creative in how certain enemies function. Without spoiling too much, The Marine Vessels and Chimeras use some
  of the same frames as other enemies. Usually doing something like could result in an enemy feeling jank... However
  in the context of RUST and the overall execution on how they are implemented, I think they work extremely well.
  In fact, even if they were kinda jank, that would make them fit into RUST even more.
  
  One thing I was extremely concerned about Episode 3 was the theme. Once I landed on the puzzle aspect, I had to think
  of a theme that was vastly different from Episode 1's techbases, and Episode 2's natural caverns. This is when I landed
  on the space theme. The reason for picking this was two fold. For Episode 3, I wanted to really delve deep into horror.
  In the previous episodes, I had elements of this scattered throughout with the Dark Entities watching the player. So
  since E3 was the finale, I finally wanted to go hard into that aspect. With space, the horror aspect starts to change
  a bit, since it's more of the being alone in the emptiness of space that leads to a very different horror vibe. And
  with how the story of RUST was shaping up, the horror just ended up leaning into cosmic horror naturally. With the
  previous two episodes there was always unknowns that the player was coming across... Who are the dark entities? why
  are they watching me? Why / What is the black structure from Episode 2. For Episode 3, I tripled down on this aspect
  exploring the many unknowns of the universe, while also not giving full answers to everything. The idea that there's
  something we don't know and can never know, can be quite spooky in of itself.
  
  My main concern with going down the space theme with spaceships / space stations, was that the theme is, in a way, a type
  of techbase. So my concern was that I'd be retreading the Episode 1 theme a bit too much. Luckily, I think I did a good
  enough job of using silver textures more often, mixed with some new space-themed textures, which seems to make it distinct
  from Episode 1. Like I could see some wads falling into this trap with their space-theme kinda blending into the stock Doom
  techbase theme. After asking my playtesters what they thought of this, they reaffirmed that the theme is distinct enough.
  
  I'd say the weird thing about Episode 3, is that it feels the least like D!ZONE... Well kinda. In terms of texturing, while
  I still followed by rule on only manually aligning textures, E3 is definitely the best looking RUST episode. I guess this
  does make some amount of sense, given the episode D!ZONE progression. Episode 1 is the most D!ZONE themed, texture-wise.
  Episode 2 starts to look a bit nicer, but still has some the texture charm with some obscure level progression layed in (E2M2).
  Episode 3 seems like a natural progression of 90s wads in that it's a bit more polished when it comes to texturing, but it
  still keeps some of the obscure progression of D!ZONE. I do think I've taken the D!ZONE aspect into another direction in E3
  though. It's more in terms of player expectations. Once you've played E3, you'll know more of what I exactly mean. E3 takes
  the D!ZONE concept of experimentation and the wild west, and applies that in a more modern Dooming sense. I know what Doomers
  expect when they play a Doom wad, and I specifically exploit those expectations to give them something they never say coming.
  
  Story-wise, I'm having with how E3 turned out. It's important to note that E3's story is extemely important since it's the
  final capstone on the RUST lore. Everything in E1 and E2 has led to this, so you need to have some kind of payoff in the end.
  I think the thing I'm most grateful and impressed with is how well the story and lore fits together between each of the episodes.
  Obivously due to the CODEX app, I've put a lot of effort and thought into the RUST lore, and to see all the pieces finally all
  fitting together is so satisfying.
  
  E3 was really special to me, because even the new enemies in the episode directly fit into
  the overall theming and concept of existential horror. RUST E2 leaned a bit into its theme of chaos with demons being corrupted
  by nature to become more furocious. But RUST E3 really does tie in its enemies into the horror aspect. RUST E3 asks not what the
  enemies are, but the terrible state they are in. Every new enemy in E3 is suffereing in one way or another. One such enemy does
  not have control of their actions, and thus suffers to watch their heinous acts in misery. Another new enemy lives a life of pain,
  as its body rips itself apart. Even enemies which aren't a traditional enemy, the horror is more that their existence is flawed
  and incomplete.


==================================
[9] LEVEL INFORMATION / COMMENTARY
==================================

------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------

!!! Note that the following commentary may have SPOILERS !!!

------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------


==== [E1M1: Engage] ====

Author: Arsinikk
Music: "The Hand That Feeds" - NIN
Difficulty: Easy

Author Commentary:
For every WAD I work on, I always think it's a good idea to have some kind of difficulty curve, so it's not
surprising E1M1 would be one of the easiest. However with that said there are some interesting choices made
with this map. First off, despite the low monster count, my main goal of E1M1 was to not allow the player to
acquire a shotgun. So for the most part a pistol is all you get (if you ignore the secret berserk). Many of
the fights and encounters in E1M1 were designed knowing the fact that the player wouldn't have anything but the
pistol to deal with them. Of course for E1M1 I thought I should give some love to STARTAN, as imo it's not
used enough in Doom maps.

I find the exit progression to be a little strange, but it does sort of feel like 90s progression. Originally
the exit door had to be re-opened by shooting the wall behind the shotgunner, but I thought that may be too
cryptic and added a re-open switch where the UAC logo was. The multiple stacked secrets were just the 90s
icing on the cake :)



==== [E1M2: Venom] ====

Author: Arsinikk
Music: "The Becoming" - NIN
Difficulty: Easy

Author Commentary:
Always been a fan of toxic themed levels. Sometimes I get surprised at how I randomly stumble across an
interesting mechanic without meaning to. I'm mostly speaking about the crusher in this map, and how it does
a surprisingly good job of keeping the map interesting. It's worth noting that I did test and see if the shotgun
at the start was grabbable at the start... and it actually is possible to item grab it, but it's pretty tricky.

The toxic pinky encounter can be surprisingly tricky since the player on pistol start doesn't have any armour or
shotgun (in continuous) to deal with him. Interestingly enough the way I play the toxic room, is that you are
meant to be able to mitigate damage by staying on the edges of the toxic steps. The next fight with the pinkies
and imps can be surprisingly challenging due to the rain obscuring your vision.

The lowering floor with the cacos behind is a reference to the end of the original E2M1 when a wall lowers down
and reveals a Cacodemon.



==== [E1M3: Containment] ====

Author: Arsinikk
Music: "Head Like a Hole" - NIN
Difficulty: Easy

Author Commentary:
This is sort of an interesting map in that it actually had a bit of revisions to it. Originally it was possible
to just skip the chaingun trap altogether and go to the right and left rooms. However, my playtesters felt that
the chaingun trap was a highlight of the map, and so I ended up making it mandatory. It was a little tricky though
re-tuning that fight. The idea is that I wanted the player to be in a brief state of panic as the trap is sprung,
but at the same time, that trap can be very deadly. The invisibility sphere used to be a secret you could grab at
the start (by turning around and pressing the door), but I ended up making it mandatory, but only after you've
escaped the trap (by shooting the switches behind the shotgunners).

Another thing interesting about this map is that I was actually concerned that it was too long of a map. In one
of an earlier versions of this map, I had actually developed a system where if you took one route, the other was
blocked off and all the enemies were killed in the other section. However I eventually decided to revert that,
because it meant for speedrunning, that only one route would be taken as it would be the fastest; but also that
kind of "Doom scripting" seemed a bit too advanced for the 90s feel I was going for. Plus I think the sections
weren't as long as I worried they'd be. I did think it was a really cool idea for only one section to have to be
completed for the yellow key. This really does work out because it means I can keep the puzzle area and not keep
it mandatory for progression, so players who don't like puzzles can just do the other route instead and still
beat the map. If it wasn't obvious, the puzzle section is a reference to the original E2M2 yellow key puzzle.
Regarding the dark crate maze section, I did end up adding a convenience candle lift just in case the player
fell off while jumping, they didn't need to go all the way around and escape the maze quickly.

If it wasn't obvious, the room with the barons is a quite overt reference to E1M1, with the switch on the side
and the pillars. It was a little interesting introducing Barons here, because I wanted to make sure it wasn't
tedious or slow to deal with them quite yet. And so I think the telefrag sequence works well here. Regarding the
secret exit, I think that it's simple enough, yet cryptic enough that it isn't too frustrating to find, but also
not too easy either.



==== [E1M4: Concrete] ====

Author: Arsinikk
Music: "The Great Below" - NIN
Difficulty: Easy-Medium

Author Commentary:
So just like the original Doom, I wanted to slowly introduce enemies slowly map-by-map. For E1M4, I wanted to
introduce the lost soul. This was a little tricky because typically the lost soul isn't a very scary enemy.
So the main goal of E1M4 is to make the lost soul actually threatening and tricky to deal with. I'm aware that
the pressure that this map puts on the player is much less on continuous, but to be quite fair, that's a very
common thing with playing continuous. However, for pistol start I was very careful about how much ammo I gave
the player, to sorta force them out into the other room due to the "lost soul horde".

Regarding the intro, I think this map does a good job of switching it up with it taking a having a slower more
atmospheric start. The best part about the start is that you can actually sorta skip progression if you know where
the switch is. Fun fact, the super secret rocket launcher in this map used to be gained by shooting the poison wall
at the start, but after all my playtesters thought to do this, I decided it was too easy to find and changed how you
get the super-secret rocket launcher. Instead now you get a rad suit.

The poison room in this map is actually very interesting because it can be surprisingly more difficult than it seems.
the platforms are placed apart just enough that it's quite easy to fall off, however they are close enough that you
can actually walk on them by just moving forward. My favourite part of this map is how the transformation works. The
idea for the map is that once the "lost soul horde" is released, to try and make it up to the top switch, flip it,
then fall down, grab the invuln, and start blasting away with the chaingun. But the part that's really cool is the
fact that hitting the switch to open the final room raises all the pillars in the other room back up just in case
you missed some enemies or possibly something else (wink wink).



==== [E1M5: Siege] ====

Author: Arsinikk
Music: "Breed" - Nirvana
Difficulty: Easy-Medium

Author Commentary:
The balls I had to take the name of the same map from Hell Revealed. But to be fair, I think it fits the map rather
well. This is actually a strange map for me, simply because it has areas you cannot access if you miss them, which
is honestly very unlike me. This is most evident by a secret lift in the lost soul ambush room. It's just a one time
lift walkover line. I'm not sure what came over me to do this.

Anyways, for the start of the map, I wanted to have a very explosive start. At the end of the last map, you finally
get a rocket launcher for progression, and so for this map I thought to create a sort of power fantasy map with the
new weapon. This map actually had me scared at first because I did the beginning encounter rather quickly and thought
it was so good, that I was worried I wouldn't be able to keep the energy of the map going. After all in just one shot
you kill almost 100 enemies all at once. But I think I did a good job keeping the energy going with the overall design
of the map focusing on being able to do the entire map with just the rocket launcher.

Rather interestingly, I had originally given the player a shotgun and chaingun at the start of the map, but decided to
cut out the chaingun entirely. I really wanted to push the player to use the rocket launcher primarily, and I found that
giving a chaingun was antithetical to the goal. I did end up keeping a shotgun, since you would pick up a shotgun later in
in the map from shotgunners anyway, and I'd rather not have the player get weapon switched the first time they randomly
picked up a shotgun.

Part of what makes this map a bit challenging in UV is the lack of health. So while you do get a bit of a power fantasy
aspect with the rocket launcher, you do have to be careful with hitscanners sniping you and not blowing up your face.
If there was any flaw in this map, I'd say it's the blue door. Interestingly enough, the door and switch didn't used to
be marked, but I decided to add blue on both to make it more clear what the switch did. Even still it can be slightly
unclear what the switch does (even if the door that it opens is technically visible from the switch). In a way though,
that part could sorta be written off as being 90s progression. Another thing to note is that if you find a certain
secret beforehand, the door is way more visible from the switch alcove.

The main reason this is one of the few maps without a NIN midi, is because I wanted the midi for this map to have a lot
of energy, which I just felt was harder to capture from the NIN midis available.



==== [E1M6: Malignant] ====

Author: Arsinikk
Music: "Heresy" - NIN
Difficulty: Medium-Hard

Author Commentary:
I would probably consider this the hardest map of the set, especially on UV. I think the main challenge here when I
started this map was making the map difficult after getting a rocket launcher. In Doom the rocket launcher can often
be used to delete most enemies immediately. Even the Baron, while tanky, can actually go down rather quickly if you
have the rocket ammo available. And so the map start with a little game of avoid the baron, adding a baron until three
Barons are on your ass. The main goal here was to make it so you couldn't delete all three barons in continuous, and
you had to at least kite one around you.

This map also has the introduction to the Cyberdemon, which is in a very devilish spot. The main idea of this map is
to do a whole loop around the cyber solving each of the rooms until you complete the full rotation. Each time you enter
a room however, a window opens allowing for the cyber to snipe you from any room. At the same time, the cyberdemon is
also your saving grace, in that you are meant to use him to help distract the barons that are released. For the most
part, every room that you complete in the map releases more barons, and so it's often a good idea to get them distracted
before moving forward.

I think the biggest challenge of this map was making sure every room felt unique and interesting; not only in aesthetics
but also in gameplay. The start room is the kite barons room. The next room is the E1M9 exit reference room. Third room
is basically a mini maze that opens up. Fourth room, a rocket launcher claustrophobic trap. Fifth and sixth rooms are
technically kinda connected, with the fifth room being the puzzle input room and the sixth being the actual progression
forward-moving room. seventh room being a maze with some minor verticality, but with the challenge mostly being on resource
starvation from the rest of the map. And the final room being a last final zombiemen ambush, where you are finally given
a chance to delete the Cyberdemon that's been harassing you the whole map.

It's worth noting that the puzzle part of the map was specifically designed to be the simplest, easiest puzzle possible.
Since the player has pressure put on them, I didn't want the puzzle to be too one that required too much brain power.
I will say that I am aware some players may still feel overwhelmed by the puzzle and therefore it is actually possible to
get behind the spiderdemon and press the switch without doing the puzzle at all. This was actually intentional, although
you do need to distract the spiderdemon long enough to do so.

The name of the map "Malignant" is named so due to the map being so harsh. After all "malignant" means malevolent.



==== [3{7M:  AIN R   ] ====

Author: Arsinikk
Music: "The Downward Spiral" - NIN
Difficulty: Easy-Medium

!!! MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD. I IMPLORE YOU TO NOT READ AHEAD IF YOU HAVEN'T PLAYED E1M7, AS IT'S BEST EXPERIENCED BLIND. !!!

Author Commentary:
This map is unarguably the most unique map in the set. I think this is both a pro and a con. The downside to this is that
this map feels the least scythe-like among all the maps. The Pro however is that everyone who's played it has found this
map to be one of the most memorable.

For this map I really wanted to create an experience over just creating a Doom map. The map really does just drip atmosphere
and later on a sort of unease. I stumbled across making text computer terminals which I think work great in a story telling
sense, as well as breaking up the map into sections. I think it goes without saying that this map's combat was not the priority
here. It's mostly just there to check the Doom "has monsters" box. Although I didn't just throw together just random encounters;
they are still throughout of course.

This is one of the few maps that was less of a speedmap compared to the others. Perhaps this is because when I started working
on the map I realised I was on to something epic, and really wanted to push it as far as it can go. Interestingly the very first
part of the map designed (besides the intro sequence), was the third really corrupted area with the cyberdemon. When I started
working on the map, I knew I wanted to have the map slowly become more and more corrupted. Interestingly my first attempt to
make a corrupted section ended up being too corrupted, which actually resulted it in being the last section before the mainframe
finale part. Due to the corruption aspect of the map, I really wanted to go all in with the really strange and experimental. You
can definitely see this with the cut in half switch being two switches, or the purposeful HOM walls in the blue corridor.

I've always been a big fan of macro architecture in Doom, so doing the final area was really awesome for me. There's something so
satisfying to me, being able to create and see large structures in the distance. It really gives you a sense of scale and shows
how small you really are to the rest of your surroundings. Funny thing about the mainframe section is that I ended up creating the
vats area, and then I sorta realised I needed to make a mainframe area (LOL). So I'm not exactly sure what the vat area is meant
to be used for, but it's there next to the mainframe :P

Of course, it was very fun to just end the map with the player waking up in front of a computer. It gives you the "it was all a
dream" feeling, and it makes sense story wise, since you were in a simulation. I think there's just something so satisfying to
successfully creating an experience that slow degrades over time. It's almost similar to what it's like playing lilith.pk3, where
you start to question what is happening, and even if you are a mapper, your sanity can start to drain.

Regarding the super secret room and the skull key areas, I thought it would be fun to include parts of maps from my previous works
as sort of an easter egg. Since it's a simulation, it kinda means I can add whatever I want and it still make sense, but also it's
just cool to see how far I've made it since I've started mapping. You can learn more about the "entities" in the CODEX, but I think
I did them very well. It's funny since I'm a huge fan of horror, that I actually spooked myself getting to close to the sprites I
made. That's when you know you made something good, if you get spooked even when you know what it is. The sounds they make are
actually some sound effects I made for the release trailer of my debut Andrik Arkane Album release trailer which was a riff off the
blair witch footage style.



==== [E1M8: Killswitch] ====

Author: Arsinikk
Music: "The Broken EP (Medley)" - NIN
Difficulty: Easy-Medium

Author Commentary:
So I actually kinda backed myself into a corner here with E1M7. You see, I think E1M7 turned out really great... However it was not
the episode ender. So now I felt with E1M8 being the finale, I needed to somehow top E1M7. I'm not exactly sure that I succeeded,
but I can say that E1M8 does have an epic quality to it, and I think it's a good episode ender. The beginning of the map is interesting
because it almost works well as a transition from E1M7 to the more action packed nature of E1M8. E1M7 compared to the rest of the wad
is a bit more slower paced, so the start of E1M8 starting slow just to pick up helps a bit with that transition.

Interestingly enough, the first idea for this map was very different from the final product. The first idea was to have a "Mancubian
Candidate" sort of set up with escorting a Baron to open up several doors while keeping him alive. If the Baron died, then a 50-ish
cybers would teleport in and kill the player.

However I ran into a couple issues with this idea. First, it's actually a little hard and kinda boring to have to escort a baron from
time to time. Second, however and probably the most troublesome, is that I thought the idea was a bit too similar to E1M6 and how it
worked. And so I ended up going in a different direction, instead designing a huge circle like arena, that did have a similar idea of
having to go on the outside, but decided to replace the Baron with a mastermind instead. The mastermind has more health than a baron
and so the main idea was that the player had to keep the mastermind alive and avoid infighting and make it to the end of the circle to
hit a "killswitch".

Ironically this also had some issues that I ran into. First the mastermind ended up taking very little damage because of it being so high
up, and the projectiles from Barons and Cacodemons ended up never reaching her. This was a huge problem obviously, because the idea was
designed with the spider death in mind leading to all the Cyberdemons teleporting in. And so my solution was to add a crusher for the
spiderdemon. This way the spiderdemon death was eventual and there was a threat of failure. While the infighting element didn't quite
work as was intended, I think the map works well with how it is now.

The spiderdemon arena was extremely difficult to get working in Vanilla. As Vanilla mappers know, Vanilla really doesn't like big open
spaces. So part of the challenge was to have as much detail as possible while also keeping things simple. Part of the sacrifices I had
to make was having a wall separating the area in half next to the spiderdemon. Although it kinda worked out with that wall becoming where
killswitch would be. Another big challenge was creating interesting encounters while being very limited on what geometry I could do without
Vanilla HOMing everywhere to do drawseg overflow. This ended up being very tricky, but I think I was able to do the best I could with
what I had. Interestingly enough due to playtester feedback saying it was too similar to another encounter, I ended up redesigning the
Cacodemon ambush, which both ended up being way more interesting but helped a bit with Vanilla limits. Another minor change toward the
end was adding a bunch of barrels in the pinky ambush, which does make things a bit more fun.

It is very unlike me to not have a backtrack teleporter, but I did feel with this map, having such a teleporter would interfere with
immersion, especially since you destroy the infernal machine at the very end. It's worth noting that there is a super cool NIN reference
in this map if you can figure out the secret progression.



==== [E1MX: Teeth] ====

Author: Arsinikk
Music: "Sonne" - Rammstein
Difficulty: Medium

Author Commentary:
This is the secret map of the episode, obviously from finding the secret exit on E1M3. This map was actually meant to be a map from
guest mapper Large Cat; but at the time Large Cat's computer wasn't working correctly, and so I ended up making it myself. As with
secret maps, I always want them to be something special. I had the idea for this wad to have a new weapon to replace the chainsaw,
and as in Eviternity II fashion, decided to relegate it only to E1MX. Theming wise I also thought it'd be interesting to have a
different theme for the secret map. Since the rest of the mapset is very tech focuses, having a hell cavern seemed to spice it up
a bit. It also feels very scythe themed as well. Combat in this map is much harsher than most of the previous maps, as I wanted to
give a taste of what later maps in the later episodes would be like.

The new weapon, named "teeth", is essentially a railgun of sorts. Originally it was not as powerful as it is now, and it would shoot
20 bullets all at once. However based on playtester feedback, they felt that the weapon should be a bit more special and beefier, and
so I ended up replacing around 5 of the bullet shots to be shotgun shots instead (still only using 20 bullet ammo of course). I will
admit the weapon is way more satisfying to use how it is now. What was most important to me about the new weapon is to make sure that
good precision was rewarded, and adding some shotgun shots does allow for some leeway, but precision is still rewarded with the 15
other pistol shots.

Another thing I wanted to introduce in E1MX was a sneak peak at the new bestiary. For later RUST episodes, I was planning on having
an expanded dehacked bestiary, but I wanted to keep episode 1 to introducing the main Doom bestiary showing that they can be used
in Doom 1 in a fun and interesting way. However in E1MX, you meet the Toximp, which is a more powerful imp that's fast and throws
baron projectiles. I can definitely see this enemy being a bit challenging as it's much faster than the original Doom 1 monsters.
The sprites were from a 90s Jon Landis WAD called "Eye of the Beholder" and they actual function close to the same (expect maybe
slightly faster). I think the sprites have a bit of the 90s flavour to them. My main goal with the new bestiary is to not recreate
the Doom II bestiary (because that is boring), but use some of the Doom II codepointers (which are in Doom v1.666) to create new
and unique monsters.

To be quite honest, this map is mostly a showcase of the new weapon and the Toximp. So many of the level design and encounters are
designed with those in mind. You can see this very noticeable with the imps all lined up on the other side of the cliff, just so
you can line them up and use the new weapon :)



==== [E2M1: Spitfire] ====

Author: Arsinikk
Music: "Jump in the Fire" - Metallica
Difficulty: Medium

Author Commentary:
So let's get a few thing straight. the first map of an episode (or WAD I guess) is to set the tone of what
is to come. And so with E2M1, that tone was: Episode II is gonna be tougher and meaner. I think the initial
fight sets the tone by bombarding the player with a dozen imps, with Cacos flying to greet the player.
Immediately, this tells the player that they are gonna have to think a bit more about combat, and I won't
be just sending one kind of enemies towards them. The pinky ambush with the rocket launcher also helps cement
that I'm not messing around with the gameplay department.

One thing I wanted to clarify immediately was that the Toximp is now going to be a regular enemy, and so
you meet them relatively quickly in this map. The real star of the show in this map is the new Vile. Keep
in mind, I said Vile and not Arch-Vile. Perhaps in one of the most controversial decisions, I decided to keep
the Arch-Vile, but change its attack. Instead of doing a flame hit-scan attack, it instead does a sort of
flamethrower style of attack. Don't be fooled however, the flames are very painful and can kill you quite
quickly. As a result, the Vile switches up the gameplay style a bit. It's actually a really bad idea now
to try and berserk a Vile. In fact, up close they are far more deadly than before. However from a distance,
they are no longer that big of a threat. They do however retain their resurrecting powers, which does still
keep them as a high-priority target. There is a catch though, as they now infight other demons (there is a
mechanic, as well as a story reason for this).

This map is actually kinda weird progression-wise. At the start of the map, to progress you must shoot a
switch to continue. This actually serves 2 purposes. 1) to wake up the imps to teleport in, and 2) to teach
the player that shooting those kind of switches results in something happening. This makes a lot more sense
once the player makes it into the building which the switch doors can only be opened by shooting them. What's
interesting about the progression here, is that technically if you kill some the barons, you can actually skip
a major fight, and basically half the map. The player will still meet the new enemy, but won't have to do my
favourite fight. I think this is an interesting choice, as it's up to the player to discover the best part
of the map for themselves. I think mappers spend so much time orchestrating parts of maps, that they feel
like they need players to experience all of it. They forget that it's really the player that's trying to have
fun, and I think the discovery of this fight, makes the map more interesting and fun. To be fair, it's not like
the fight is very hidden, it's just that a sort of weird D!ZONE / 90s WAD progression is required to get there.

So the name "Spitfire" was actually taken from a Prodigy song. Probably my favourite song off that album. While
technically a spitfire is a sort of fighter plane (I'm sorry if my over-generalization offends you :P), it
does invoke a sense of ferocity. The name itself gives a visual of literally spitting fire... which is exactly
what a Vile does... Oh wait, now the name makes sense ;). I actually did have an idea of naming all E2 maps
based on the new monsters that were being introduced, but I ended up abandoning that idea... To be honest, it
was a little hard to come up with a good name for the next map's monster.



==== [E2M2: Recoil] ====

Author: Arsinikk
Music: "Devil's Dance" - Metallica
Difficulty: Medium

Author Commentary:
This might be my favourite map of the set... Is it because it's the best playing map? No, I don't really think so.
The reason this map is my favourite is that I think it's the most D!ZONE style of map of the entire set, and it's
all due to the map progression. What's so great about this map's progression, is that it's so unclear on how to get
the red key, that there's multiple ways to do so... And the majority of the time, the player will probably not know
what the "intended" way of getting the red key actually is. I absolutely love this, and I think this really does
speak to the early 90s / D!ZONE attitude of mappers, and players being like "what the fuck is the mapper thinking?".

This whole map is purposely weird in its triggers and progression, although it starts to get a little more normal
once you open the red "door". A fun fact about the big red skull door: you can press on it at different places to
get it to raise even faster, as it's cut into like 3-4 different open door triggers (not in ZDoom tho :/).

This map does introduce a really unique enemy: the nightmare. Imagine a lost soul, that can shift into a revenant
missile... and when it hits you, explodes like a barrel. It's truly a horrifying enemy, but also quite quick to kill.
This enemy is actually inspired by the seemingly scientient revenant missiles seen in MAP04 of Hellground, but of
course turned into an actual monster. Behind-the-scenes wise tho, this enemy was REALLY hard to get working right
via DehackEd. First off, the sprites of the monster were altered quite a bit, in order to get it to make sense for
the player. What I mean is that originally all of its sprites were just a green recoloured lost soul. The problem
here was that I needed to convey to the player that when the nightare was charging, it could move through impassible
walls (midtexs, etc). It's very important gameplay-wise to convey to the player as quick as possible how an enemy
works, and so I started working on trying to convey that. First try was by crosshatching the sprite to make it
"see-through", however this did not look very good upclose, and when a bunch of them grouped up they weren't that
see-through. My solution was to make them fully green to make them look more ghostly. I think the final solution
works out pretty well, and makes it super clear when they are in their spectral form.

Mechanically, the nightmare was also tricky to work with. The way it actually works is that it's an enemy that
fires a revenant missile... However the revenant missile looks like the lost soul charging. After firing the
missile, the monster actually disappears from the map. This actually cause a few issues. First of all, if the
Nightmare counted toward the enemy count, the enemy count doesn't actually go down unless the enemy enters a
death state... Which the Nightmare did not do. The way I fixed this was removing them from the monster count
(which I mean made alot of sense, being that lost souls aren't currently counted either). The second problem
was actually trickier and involved monster infighting logic. I found that if a monster had been infighting with
a Nightmare, after the Nightmare had "fired it's missile" and it them, that monster would still be trying to
fight the Nightmare, even when it disappeared. From this, I surmised that the infighting logic was actually tied
to a monster's death state, so a monster would only stop infighting a monster, if the other monster actually
died. This was a problem. Interestingly enough, I did find a solution however. My solution was for the nightmare
to use the Arch-Vile monster slot. If you don't know certain monster slots have special properties, and it just
so happens that the Arch-Vile slot includes "no-infighting" functionality and a "range limit". This means that
by using that slot, I could ensure that no other monster would get stuck infighting with the nightmare. It also
means as a bonus, that nightmare won't enter their missile state unless you're around a certain distance, which
I think helps in regards to balancing. The downside of course, is that the Vile can now infight other monsters,
but I think it's worth the thing slot swap.

Continuing on in the map, there a couple fun things. First there's an extremely goofy purposeful "make pinkies
get mastermind stuck" fight. I mean seriously, the goal is to force the pinkies to bite the mastermind to death
:P. Next is a really unique interesting "underwater" or "underblood" section that may seem like black magick to
some Doom players/mappers. The technique involves doing a bunch of flat bleeds to simulate going under "water",
and is heavily inspired by and mechanically very similar to MAP31 of Perdition's Gate. I will admit I went a
little overboard in using multiple floor levels... sorta showcasing my mapping wizardry I guess.

Last but not least, there's a really funny key puzzle, that I could totally see in a D!ZONE map, and then a really
fun stair builder section that I think people will really enjoy. Honestly I think this map is my personal favourite
of E2, if not the whole WAD, as it's really weird and quite unique.

The name "Recoil" is kinda weird... Originally the idea was that the map had lots of spirals, "coils", and then at
the end it coils back to the start. I guess it's awkward, because recoil kinda means to go back to the start, but
usually it means to jump back in fear. I guess players will prob "recoil" in fear away from these nightmares ;)



==== [E2M3: Willow] ====

Author: Arsinikk
Music: "My Apocolypse" - Metallica
Difficulty: Medium-Hard

Author Commentary:
While I said earlier that E2M2 was probably my favourite map of E2, I think that E2M3 is just as, if not more
memorable simply to due to the Willow Tree. I think the Willow Tree is such a unique structure and perfectly
encapsulates the strange thinking that 90s mappers back in the day, when they were trying to make something
in the Doom engine. While trees don't usually have marble brick at the top, the visual easily gets the point
across.

As for the overall map, this map takes a very different approach than the previous E2 maps, if not all the
maps that have come before. This map is very open, which I think does fit the D!ZONE open and empty vibe.
I do think that it leans more on the open, rather than empty, but it does result in some pretty tough open
combat spaces. The initial fight (especially after pressing the switch behind the berserk), really does
embrace some of the combat chaos I was hoping to add into this episode. Everything in E1 seemed much more
structured, which did fit the techbase vibe and aesthetic. While there were tough elements and traps in E1,
it still felt pretty controlled. E2 on the other hand, just like nature, embraces the uncontrolled and chaos,
as is in nature, we cannot control what happens in the environment. Nature has its own rules, and we must
now adapt to them.

Now interestingly enough, after the beginning area, the map is cut into two paths... That is if you disregard
the bonus "skull" area. I say "interestingly enough" because originally the map was gonna be closer to E1M3,
in that you could choose which path to take and then just skip the other path. However, finnks13, one of my
testers, said that he thought the map would be better if both paths were to be required and said he thought
the map was short enough. And so now both paths are required, each for a key.

The main reason finnks13 probably insisted that both paths be required was probably for the red key path,
which results in meeting a new enemy: the Medusa. I will admit that the Medusa is probably my favourite
and the most unique Doom enemy that I've seen in a while... and I think that the red key area does a
perfect job in teaching the player about it's mechanics and why it's so scary. To reiterate, the reason
the Arch-Vile attack was taken away, was for the Medusa and I think it was justified given how the monster
turned out. Imagine an enemy that doesn't actually attack you, but robs you of one of your most important
weapons in playing Doom. Now you may be confused upon hearing that, as the Medusa does not actually take
away a weapon in a literal sense. When I say weapon here, I mean that the most important weapon in Doom
is movement. What I mean is your ability to dodge, run away, use cover, avoid getting melee'd to death...
All of that is dictated by your skill to move. Now the Medusa, just like the mythological creature, has
the ability to freeze you in place. While technically this doesn't seem too dangerous (unless it gets too
close to melee you), and to be honest, with one Medusa it's actually not a big deal. What is dangerous
is other enemies in combination with a Medusa. Adding a Medusa within a group of imps and/or demons, is
actually horrifying... because if you can't move, you can't run backward to avoid them coming close to you,
nor can you dodge any projectiles. This makes the Medusa the most dangerous chess piece in the combat puzzle.
I think that the red key fight perfectly introduces the mechanics and the danger that the Medusa poses,
and honestly I think it's one of the most unique Doom enemies that I haven't ever seen done before.

The yellow key route is very different, in that it doesn't rely on any new enemy. While I really like
the yellow key area, I will admit that the forest area looks waaaaay too good for a 90s / D!ZONE WAD.
I will admit I'm still impressed with how I was able to make a nice tree canopy area in vanilla,
while staying under VPO and DrawSeg limits. I'd say what makes up for the nice looking area is the
"obligatory" random raise/lower platform area. Now that is very 90s and also pretty much hogs all
of the max platform limit. :P

The "skull" area is actually influenced by a puzzle map in "Eye of the Beholder". Look I'm not gonna
sugarcoat it, that map is rough, but I did like the instant invisible crusher. While I don't usually
like instant death traps... I mean there's a giant skull that flashes in the centre... So I think
it's VERY clear that it says death. The secret sequence here does embrace 90s/D!ZONE secret tagging,
as there's literally like 18 secrets here :P

Oh yeah, also you can totally get the "Dark Teeth" weapon at the start. I thought it would be fun to
allow the player to use that weapon in other maps besides E2MX.



==== [E2M4: Sanguine] ====

Author: Arsinikk
Music: "Reptile" - NIN
Difficulty: Hard

Author Commentary:
So this map is very mean. Like I think it makes it clear from the very first fight, but honestly that may be the
hardest fight in the episode. I am speaking of pistol-start, of course... and of course, if you don't use the secret
Invulnerability for the fight. Again I think it does fit the chaos combat theme of the episode.

I think this is where I started introducing a few new textures (from the wad Slaughter Until Death). This map is a
bit of an outlier in the episode, as it actually feels a bit closer to E1 than E2. There's a bit of a techbase vibe,
and it even reverts to using a NIN midi, instead of E2's Metallica tracks. I do think it does work, though as this
sort of techbase is hell-infested. While it has some ties to E1, I think it's different enough to stand alone from
the E1 aesthetic.

The idea for this map is that it's a "hell factory". While it does feel like E1, it does have a darker and more moody
tone. On top of that, the map is much harsher, especially the final fight. I don't have too much to say about most of
the map. The map does have slow crushers, but I think they are very obvious similar to the ones in the original Doom
E2M2.

I think the most memorable part of the map is the "drilling structure" which seems to indicate that they are extract
blood for whatever reason, and the final fight. Now there's a couple interesting things about the final fight. First
off, the final fight actually introduces two new enemies, which is a bit of switch-up, but also embraces a bit of the
chaos theme. Second, a cyberdemon, a boss monster, is introduced into a seemingly unexpected way. And Finally, the
player finally receives a new weapon: the Incinerator.

A couple fun things about the new weapon is that it was actually added late in development of E2... So this final fight
actually used to be quite a bit tougher using the regular plasma rifle. However, after playing Obituary, I fell in love
with the flamethrower weapon in that WAD, and I felt it fit better with the custom enemies of E2. The Incinerator
is an extremely over-powered weapon. You will find in E2, ammo for the weapon is a bit scarce. While the projectiles
do a ton of damage, they do have the downside of having gravity, and so they are most useful at a short-medium range.
This actually does change how the weapon is used in the episode, as the rare ammo forces you to choose when to use it,
and the shorter range forces you to get closer to larger foes such as the Cyberdemon.

Regarding the new enemies, there are two. The Skinwalker, which is essentially a melee revenant, and the Hate Elemental.
The Skinwalker is actually a bit more dangerous has it does have a faster speed, than even the Vile. I'm pretty happy
with how the sprite recolour turned out, as well as the story of the monster's origin is literally a horror story.
The Hate Elemental is actually almost more interesting, if you know about it's quirks. The Hate Elemental actually
replaces the Mastermind thing slot. This means that it actually has splash resistance. This is important when you
consider that the Hate Elemental spits out Nightmares that explode like barrels, thus the splash resistance is
crucial. You may have noticed that they don't make full volume sounds, however. This is because through Dehacked
codepointers I actually replaced their wake and death sounds so that it would happen locally instead of full volume.
I think having the Hate Elementals in a fight with the Cyberdemon is very interesting, as with them having splash damage
immunity, they don't die nearly has quickly as you'd normally expect.

Some interesting trivia you may find interesting is that the Skinwalker was almost used instead of the spectre in E1M3
for the baron reveal... But finnks13 convinced me to not have the first new enemy be a melee enemy... It's kinda weird
thinking about that now, since E1 really doesn't have many custom enemies besides the Toximp in E1MX.

The map name is probably pretty clear... Sanguine - Blood-Red



==== [E2M5: Labyrinth] ====

Author: Arsinikk
Music: "The Call of Ktulu" - Metallica
Difficulty: Hard

Author Commentary:
I would say this is the most fleshed out map of the set so far... Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, I'll
let you decide. The whole idea of this map is almost like you're entering an "abandoned" temple through a secret
entrance. I guess it kinda reminded me of the beginning of Doom Raider... Although maybe I'm getting a little ahead
of myself. The first room is sort of like a mini puzzle. I don't think it's too hard, but I could see some players
getting a little stuck. I thought it was a cool detail that behind the start, you can actually see the blood factory
from the last map (with all it's low detail glory). It was this map where I discovered I could make fun marble faces
by combining different elements... Hopefully you enjoy those :).

After exiting the first room into the open field, the door will close behind you and you'll be greeted by a Hate
Elemental and a bunch of new rocket zombies. If you're wondering why you get locked out of the first room, it's due
to VPO shenanigans (sorry). The new rocket zombies work as you would expect... except instead of dropping rockets, they
drop whole rocket launchers. I think this should be a fun surprise for players, as they may be used to rocket zombies...
But not ones that actually drop a full rocket launcher :). What results afterward is chaotic fight between Viles
resurrecting rocket zombies, which keep dying and dropping lots of rocket launcher ammo.

Like I said above, I did wanna give a feel like you had to find a way into the temple through a secret entrance,
instead of just walking through the main doorway. I feel this adds a bit more mystic, but also keeps the adds to
the curiosity and exploration aspects. The next big section is a flesh maze with a bunch of skinwalkers... which
I can see some players getting frustrated with, but I think it's good practice to learn to get around them to not
take splash damage. After that, there's probably the main hub area which results in a pretty big slaughter fight.
After that fight, the map cuts into two different paths which are distinct both in combat and visuals. Unlike with
E2M3, I decided due to the map length to only require one path to exit. However since the secret exit is found in
this map, you will have to explore everything in the map to get all three keys to get to the secret exit.

Aesthetically I went with a certain visual style. Similar to E2M1, this map does have the marble castle/temple
aesthetic with the green brick. However, I put a little twist of the visuals: for the dark / shaded areas, I used
the red brick (SP_HOT) to add some extra contrast. I think the result works pretty well in giving a both classic
yet new aesthetic. And as a bonus, to help spruce up the visuals a bit, I decided to add the Heretic torches to
really hone down the castle feel.

I think one thing this map does do well is that with a bunch of the different areas having distinct visuals, it
actually helps it feel like a classic 90s map. Most of the maps up to this point have each had a particular style
which seemed to fit the map entirely, whereas this map has a bunch of different themes, that it almost feels a bit
disjointed at times. Personally I think it works, and I think it does call back to how older 90s maps would do the
same visual swaps throughout.

There are two paths the player can take, there's the "medusa" puzzle path, and then the wood crate maze. I'd say the
wood crate maze is more straight forward, although it is a "maze" of course. Whenever I do crate mazes, I usually
prefer to add some verticality to the maze, which there are some elements of walking on certain crates and such.
I like the way this section turned out, and I think this path will be preferred by those who don't wanna solve puzzles.

The "medusa" puzzle path, is like in the name, puzzle focused. There's a medusa in the middle that you have to keep
track of, while making sure you don't die from the other ambushes. The main goal of the puzzle is to make it to the
other side, hit all the switches on perimeter (which raises a bridge in the middle), to finally hit a switch in the
centre. There's an added "time" element where you can temporarily "disable" the medusa in the middle for 30 seconds.
I tried to make this part clear, but I'm sure some players may mess this up and accidently trigger both of them :P
I think it's fun that the puzzle ends with the lava in the centre raising via a donut action.

Some trivia about the puzzle path, is that the version of the puzzle in the final WAD is actually a heavily simplified
version of the original puzzle. I'm actually much happier with the final version, as it's simpler and less confusing.
Originally there were actually no switches on the perimeter, and the goal was just to walk on these raising platforms
that would raise from the lava. The awkward part about this setup was that the platforms were slow, and it was very
easy for the player to walk over certain platforms in the lava that hadn't raised yet. Basically it was extremely
jank, and not very clear. Funny enough, the main thing that convinced me to simplify the puzzle was when I showed
my younger brother the puzzle sequence and he just responded with: "I don't know what you just did". That is when
I realized, the puzzle was probably not clear enough and should be redesigned.

The final section (besides the secret exit area), is the dark blue key area. What's cool about this area is that you
can technically get to it from the flesh room, if you wait a really long time for the entrance to open up. When
entering the flesh maze, a door starts to open and the door ceiling is so low that it easily takes several minutes
to fully open. I don't think the dark area is that interesting combat wise, but I do kinda like the idea that if you
backtrack, you could discover that a new area has opened up.

For whatever reason this map was the hardest map to name, and to be honest I'm still not super happy with the name
"Labyrinth". It does sorta fit due to the maze-like nature of the map and the many different areas that you can
explore. I just think that the name doesn't fully encapsulate the map as fully as some of the other map names.



==== [E2M6: Isolation] ====

Author: Arsinikk
Music: "Hurt (Arsinikk's Dark Mix)" - NIN
Difficulty: Easy

Author Commentary:
Well let's just get this part over with as soon as possible. The name "Isolation" is pretty self-explanatory, as there are
very little enemies (which when playing vanilla, you wouldn't even know if there were at first) and it seems as though the
map is abandoned. The atmosphere also helps in creating a feeling of dread and the feeling of "you should not be here".

Most of the maps up to this point have been very combat focused, whereas this one is focused all on atmosphere. In some ways
this map taps into the same atmosphere as E1M7 did, but with an added taste of mystery. With the start of the map being a
forced pistol start (and well when you get the flashlight, it's almost a forced fist start), it adds an element of the player
feeling defenceless. While technically you can switch away from the flashlight, players will notice almost immediately that
the map is designed around the extra light that the flashlight provides, so you would sacrifice visibility over power... which
you don't really get any armoury for most of the map.

Unlike E1M7 which focused on the loss of control and not knowing what's happening, this map instead focuses on the fear of
being alone, or if you are actually alone, and the fear of the unknown, or when the shoe is finally going to drop. And so
E2M6 relies on suspense, and when something actually happens then that's when the action starts.

The flashlight functionality is interesting because it's actually in the SuperShotgun slot... In Doom 1. Doom version v1.666
and up is based on the Doom II engine, and so it does actually include the SuperShotgun slot and functionality. The problem
with using this slot however, is that it's hardcoded to not allow the player to switch back to the SuperShotgun slot, since
it's not in Doom 1. The player however can pick it up. With this knowledge I thought it would be cool to add a flashlight in
it's place. I already had used this in a demo for the menu, but when I made that it wasn't a real "weapon"... So for E2, I had
to rework it so that it made sense and could be used as a weapon. I decided to allow the player to punch using the flashlight,
which the beserk at the start of the map helps with. However the issue was conveying to the player that once you swapped away,
you could never switch back. I got around this by adding a lore reason that the flashlights were fragile and would break if you
switched away. Mechanically, I tweaked the "lower weapon" state to literally have the flashlight explode, to make it super clear
to the player that the weapon was unusable at that point.

The golem enemies are somewhat inspired by the moving statues trope. In that if you look away, that's when they move. Of
course, they don't work like that, since the Doom enemy logic can't really do something like that. Instead they just have
really long states where they just don't do anything. When they do move, however, they can charge at you and do massive damage.
They use the functionality of the lost soul charge, but are instead bound to the ground. While their chase speed is very slow,
their charge is very fast and very deadly. Their abruptness adds to the jumpscare-y horror aspect of their design.

Regarding the midi, this is actually the only midi that I made a remix of. With how atmosphere was king for this map, it was
important to tailor the music exactly to fit. Hurt by NIN is an amazing song, but I did feel the chorus was a little too major
key, and so I tweaked it a bit to sound a bit darker. The other minor change I made was I added extra space between the music
parts to showcase a bit more emptiness with the white noise.

I'm pretty happy with how this map turned out, and while it doesn't rely heavily on combat (except maybe for the final fight),
I'd say that the atmosphere is what makes it stand out.

If you've been lucky to find a secret compartment, all I'll say is that the rad suit is there for a reason. :)



==== [AGEYCO7IH2 :NMPG] ====

Author: Arsinikk
Music: "The Perfect" - NIN
Difficulty: Easy-Medium

Author Commentary:
I'd like to note that after E2M6, I did take a bit of a break regarding RUST E2. I did E2M1-E2M6 all in October 2024 for
NanoWADMo, but I was having a bit of trouble starting E2M7. I think a part of it was that E1M7 was received very well, that I
I didn't wanna disappoint players for E2's E2M7. You see, like E1M7, E2M7 was supposed to focus on the concept of RUST, or on
something decaying or breaking down... perhaps shifting into another state. E1 focused on technology, and so it only made sense
for E1M7 to focus on data corruption and a system breaking down. A simulation's final moments. And so you had parts of map
seemingly breaking via HOMs or switching doing odd things. It was a sort of breaking down of sanity, but it was all technological.
For E2 the theme was on nature and chaos, so I needed to take a different approach. And so for E2M7 I focused instead on mental decay.

It's sorta similar to E1M7, except instead of textures and actions being weird, the environment starts to loop, turn upside-down, flip,
change around the player. Even some of the monsters you fight have been turned upside-down. I think this works really well as it is
a break down of sanity once again... but it feels more chaotic and real, as opposed to a technological failure. What I also like about
this idea is that it allowed me to add some really weird and strange fights and room designs similar to what you may find in some 90s/
D!ZONE maps. Stuff like using the sky for a wall texture, or the blue flashing room with weird blocking lines. Everything in this map
is weird and doesn't make much sense, and yet you never feel lost to not push through.

One of the coolest part of this map was revisiting other maps in the set, but upside-down. Actually the upside-down gimmick was heavily
inspired by MAP05 of Icarus, which is supposed to be a map upside-down (It's debatable how successful this gimmick was executed). I also
really think it's cool that the map ends in the same end corridor as E1M7... meaning that player keeps revisiting the seventh floor...
Of course this time you can see that the door to the infernal machine was since been destroyed.

Regarding the midi, I had to put a lot of work to get to work in Vanilla... Literally I reduced the midi from 84kb to 71kb, and even
reworked many of the tracks to get it working. I think the track works well for the weird and mind-bending feel of the map. Funny enough,
the beginning sequence of this room is actually an idea I had from another map I was planning to make for a project led by Scwiba (shhh,
it's a secret, and sorry this gimmick was thrown into RUST instead).

The map name can be figured out by extracting E2M7 from the name (The hint to extract this is the ":"). Once you do that, you get AGYCOIHNPG,
which can be solved being an anagram. Rearrange the letters and you get "Hypnagogic" which means "sleep-inducing" or relating to the state
immediately before falling asleep. Once you've played the map, I think you can agree that this word fits this map pretty well.



==== [E2M8: Pyre] ====

Author: Arsinikk
Music: "Battery" - Metallica
Difficulty: Medium-Hard

Author Commentary:
Funny enough, I was worried about delivering a worthy successor to E1M7, that after finishing E2M7 it was smooth sailing for this map.
I think the opening shot of this map is really cool, and I'm pretty happy for being able to create a cool visual with the cubes moving
at the start. One thing I did forget about was the full volume bug thing for E2M8, so I did have to add a few "stop moving" lines to
avoid the cubes making sound throughout the whole map.

Since it's a finale map, it's a bit straight forward when it comes to progression. I already had an idea of the final area... Basically
the idea was to do an open area with a bunch of Cybers, similar to THE_GRID.WAD from D!ZONE. I'd say this changed a little in the end,
for the sake of gameplay and Drawseg limits, but still the main inspiration was that WAD. I should say that the final arena is extremely
detailed that it took quite a bit of work to get it under Drawseg limits.

Another fun thing I discovered in this map is that I found I could combine sector actions. Now I do need to preface that this only works
for light actions, as when trying to change a floor to another effect, the effect will usually be replaced... However light sector effects
have a unique behaviour, in that they get initialised at the start of the map and can't be changed. So if you have a glow sector, and try to
make it stop glowing, it doesn't work... So I already knew some of this and was disappointed that I couldn't make a sector both a secret and
damaging... However I did discover that if you have a sector glowing at the start, and then change that sector to damaging, you could in-fact
create a new kind of sector effect: damaging + glowing. And of course, you can see that I used this effect in the beginning area and the final
arena.

Now those who find the super secret non-secret area of E2M2 will notice that the area after falling in the pit is essentially the same area.
I'll admit that usually I don't like to reuse areas in my maps, but I think that since that area in E2M2 is super-secret, and it works really
well for this map, it was fine to do so. There's something unique about the visuals that really does fit the theme of the map.

Combat-wise this map is unique. It isn't the same kind of "unique" that E2M6 was, but it instead goes into the opposite direction, dipping its
toes in slaughter. Those who have played my WADs such as 100/200 Line Massacre, or Hellcinerator would know that I am a big fan of slaughter,
but I do wonder how much of a shock it will be for some players. I do sorta see it as gearing up for the final fight and the final episode...
So I feel you'd expect the gameplay to start to escalate.

There is a big circle type room with a static cube in the centre that both builds tension, but also sets the player up for the final fight.
I like how abstract, but also ominous and strange this room is. Originally this room was just for atmosphere reasons, but later on I did use
it to make the floor of the final arena fully damaging via the glowing + damaging floor trick mentioned above.

I'm really happy with how the final fight turned out. There's a slow descent which works with the upside down detail of the arena, where you
get thrown into the lava trenches and then have to fight a bunch of Cyberdemons with the Incinerator. I feel that people would expect the
final fight to have a few Cyberdemons, with it being E2M8, but due to the trench layout and management of ammo and rad suits, it adds some
extra challenge and pressure on the player. I will admit that this map isn't really meant to be super difficult... But it's more for the
spectacle and I think it delivers.

The name "Pyre" refers to a structure for burning a body as part of a funeral rite or execution. I think it fits this map well as lots of the
map includes damaging lava, and the entire final arena is essentially a giant pyre where the player or cybers will end up dying on.



==== [E2MX: Cryostasis] ====

Author: Large Cat
Music: "Eye" - The Smashing Pumpkins
Difficulty: Hard

Author Commentary:
It was largely my idea to create this map using only '90's tools, so I have only myself to blame for all the suffering DETH caused me.
I'm being somewhat hyperbolic, of course, but going back 30 years in editing tools really does put into perspective how much the design
standard has shifted. This has been one of my most work-intensive maps to date, and yet it might be the most humble-looking map I've
created. Mad respect to the mappers of yore for what they accomplished with the tools of the day.

You might think the big mapping crutch missing in early editors is 3D mode, but it's surprisingly easy (for me at least) to get past
the lack of visual editing when I'm able to test the map to see everything. My hang-ups are in the bit of extra work it takes to do
basic tasks like creating geometry, particularly sectors, which are much more arcane, abstract, and fragile structures than UDB would
have you believe. And of course, there's living in constant fear of VPO's which will end your testing session immediately, rather than
letting you keep playing and taking stock of overflows.

As for the map itself, Arsinikk told me I would be highlighting an arachnotron-type enemy, so the eight-"legged" Tricks and Traps
structure leapt to mind right away. The modular structure of the map nicely served the limitations under which I was mapping, keeping
each map chunk nicely contained for me to work on. Then, of course, I totally ruined my workflow by insisting on capping the map's arc
off with a big level transformation that forced me to be extra careful about how the chunks of the map interacted, both in terms of game
logic and rendering limits.

In a reversal of our usual roles, I actually made this map too ugly for Arsinikk, with essentially no unpegged textures anywhere causing
constant visual seams on every window, door, and switch. Some of that could have been avoided if I took a little more care in texture
alignment, but a part of me just wanted to probe Arsinikk's visual sensibilities: could I make something even he would look at with horror?



==== [33M1: H34V3N5] ====

Author: Arsinikk
Music: "Strangelove" - Depeche Mode
Difficulty: Spooky/Mazy

Author Commentary:
So E2M8 ended with the player entering into the void dimension, which had the aesthetic of moving static. Now the very first vista you
see in the map was the very first thing completed for RUST E3. The fun part is that, in my opinion, doing a full episode of maps with just
static would be super boring and uninteresting... So of course I had to figure out how to incorporate the static sections with something
else. I landed with the theme of the episode being space, whether that be on some planets, or spaceships / space stations. The static
sections did end up being a little requirement for the E3 maps. I think the idea was that the space areas were "reality", while the
static kept trying to take you back into its realm... So you'd always be thrown back into the static in E3, often randomly.

E3M1 as a map was really important because it was the tone setter for the episode. It's a little funny that E2M8 ended in a more
slaughter-focused way. I think it was because I was thinking E3 may go the way of Scythe E3 with more monsters and more slaughter.
Obviously once I decided on more puzzle-focused gameplay with horror elements, E3 went down a very different direction. I really did
struggle with this map's start... Actually funny enough there are 2 sections I made for this map originally which ended up being put
in E3M5. Originally I had added a puzzle section, which ended up in a super secret area of E3M5. This puzzle, while I liked it, just
felt like too much a pacing killer. I felt that if you didn't wanna solve a big puzzle, this would lead some people to stop playing E3.
So at that point, I knew I probably should make the puzzle optional. However, it just didn't seem like it would fit inside a first map.
In the other episodes, there wasn't ever really a puzzle that required you to stop and think really hard, so I think I realised that
I went a little too hard with this particualr puzzle. When I realised this, I decided to shelve it for later... Which obviously it was
finally added to E3M5 in the end.

I had another section which I built originally for this map, but ended up using for E3M5. This section was the start of the city area,
where I had basically created the midtexture / Dark Teeth building and the start of the gas station. This section was heavily inspired
by the 90s Doom City wad, which I think was a good callback for D!ZONE stuff. Overall, I think the main problem with this section was
that while it was good, it just didn't fit well to be a first map of an episode. And so I shelved this section as well. It was not
looking good, and I was struggling so bad in trying to make a first map. That was until I made a little puzzle area that seemed to fit
with the other rust maps.

At first the puzzle was kinda stupid... it was one of those "oh hit the correct 1 of 4 switches", else you get killed by barrels...
It was kinda terrible tbh. I did however create a window looking out to see a spaceship in space, and so the space theming was starting
to make its way in. A bit later on, I actually made this puzzle a puzzle, by adding a sequence of green lights above the switches, and
having the player press the only blinking candelabra (I will admit I used to have more flashing lights in this room, but in order to make
the blinking more obvious, I had to scale the flashing lights back). Of course, even when you did reveal the right sequence, it looked
slightly offset to what the sequences looked above the switches. This is a simple puzzle, but it does set the tone for the more puzzly
aspects of E3.

Next is the most important part of the map. The dark maze with the enemies I like to call "invisiguys". Lore-wise, these are called
"Marine Vessels", as they are dead marines, where their suits are mechanically controlled by an outside force. So to fit the theme of E3,
when they see the player, they say "release me", in that the soul of the marine is still inside and is forced to watch their own body
kill their comrades and everyone they come across. So the idea that you stuck in a suit and unable to stop yourself from doing horrible
acts, is a horror in of itself.

From a combat perspective, this section is really important. I basically give the player a flashlight to try and stop the player from
fighting these enemies. The idea is that you must run around in the maze, hit all the switches, then open a force field to get to a
berserk and a baron. In other words, unlike most Doom maps, you are not supposed to fight the enemies, and instead run from them until
you have the means to fight them later. This sets the tone really well for E3, in that it forces the player to play in a way that isn't
traditional Doom gameplay. What's really funny is that these enemies used to be way tougher. They used to be way faster and fire without
a wind up... So some of my playtesters were deathly afraid to test later maps, because they thought this map was way too hard. Luckily
I nerfed them enough, that while they are still dangerous, they are defintely more manageable now.

Finally my favourite part of this map, after you kill those enemies, is that if you continue down the elevator, you make it to a spaceship,
which is used in a majority of the RUST E3 maps. Once you enter inside it and leave in the spaceship, the map ends... and you'll see that
you only got 3% kills. This is very very intentional. Again messing with player's expectations. It's common for players to not want to
100% maps or find all the secrets. But getting 3% of the kills at the end of a map? That's incredably suspicious, and enough so that I
think most people will want to go back and see what the 97% of the kills they missed were. It is moments like this that make E3 feel
like it's toying with the player, in a way that most Doom wads do not.



==== [E3L2: HYDR4] ====

Author: Arsinikk
Music: "Fools" - Depeche Mode
Difficulty: Weird/Confusing

Author Commentary:
This map is funny. When I settled in what band I was gonna use midis from, I ended up with Depeche Mode. Which btw is my dad's
favourite band. Well he likes anything from Violator and before. Well point is I came across the Depeche Mode midi "Fools" and I loved
it. It's so goofy, yet playful. Perfect for the style of map this is. So unlike the last map which was in a starport in space, a sort
of loading dock for spaceship, this map starts while in the spaceship you ended the map in last map, but this time you are on another
planet. This spaceship is pretty important for the rest of the episode. Basically for most of the episode, you start and end the map
at the same spaceship. The reason you can't immediately end the map, is that you must find a red key to take off again. This concept
is new to RUST, but has been featured before in other wads. In the 90s wad Icarus, it sorta does this with a same end and beginning,
although it is kinda bad at being as consistent. The reason I'm mentioning the spaceship start/end now, is because it becomes much
more relevant later. The important thing is that I'm setting up an expectation on this map first, and then continuing it later.

This map is kinda similar to E2M2, in that the progression is fucking weird. Basically you must enter a cave, find it's blocked,
go backward, find that way's been blocked, then go back and forth... there's a small static switch you must shoot, which then forces
you to shoot a dark entity in a static section to progress... This shooting a dark entity is a bit of a red herring, but still you
haven't been forced to shoot an entity in the previous maps, so this can seem like a big deal. In the big open area, there's a bunch
of zombiemen and a proto-drone (archnotron), that just sits there and cannot see you. This map specifically uses an altered reject
table that stops some enemies from seeing the player even if you're in front of them. This is actually super 90s when it comes to
maps having a jank reject table. To get the chaingun / armour, you must shoot the spider to wake him up. I don't know if you can
tell, but this map is already weird.

Grab the weapon and a cave opens up, which if you go down towards an exit door, you randomly get teleported into a crazy weird
static section. Let me just mention that this static section was actually added a bit later in development... Like after the map was
considered finished. The goal of it was to 1) have a gameplay static section, but 2) more importantly try to showcase how the new
purple barrels worked. This is important to mention because it wasn't until later in development that I added the new purple barrels
(barrels that have more hitpoints but explode with twice as much damage). The main reason for this, was the barrel puzzle later on
in this map. Basically you get through an area, you need to go around the barrels, and sometimes punch them out of the way.
Originally it had normal barrels, but it was a bit too easy to blow yourself up this way... So I added new tougher barrels just for
this puzzle. Although thematically and aesthetically having new barrels is nice to further distinguish itself from the previous two
episodes.

After you escape the static section, walking around the main area, you'll see a dark arrow pointing towards a random wall...
Walk into the wall and it's progression to a hidden switch. The reason this is so strange and goofy is that you can enter this hidden
wall at any time... It's just that you're least likely notice that you can until the arrow shows to do so... Afterwards the switch
does a fun staircase which then teleports you into the barrel puzzle section. The idea is that you must navigate a room of barrels,
sometimes punching them out of the way, to make it to a red key, then run back to a teleport with a soulsphere, before an invisguy
who fires quickly blows up all the barrels before you can escape. This puzzle does have the downside of being a little long, but
I think the payoff is worth it. Again the puzzly aspect strikes again...

The next "star" room with barons is just weird... basically random parts of the star will lower while you're in the middle and you
have to fight a bunch of barons up close. The weird part is just the way the star works so so strange... like you can press on walls
to lower parts of the star... Exiting this room is even weirder as you have to press on a bunch of lifts, avoid a hate elemental, and
then make your way out before the lift corridor closes off again. I will mention I added a new area that will only open if you've
lowered all the star walls, that allows you to "download coordinates" to the U.S.S. Helena. This section didn't used to be here
until the wad was almost finished. Basically I thought it'd be nice lore-wise, but also to have some cover open up for the hate
elemental. One of the final additions before the wad release was actually creating real coordinates on the automap.

The next fight is just so goofy. Hate Elementals (who are splash immune) vs Cyberdemon. It's just a funny fight. Behind them, is a
rad suit, you can take to cross a damaging river. This map is designed around the concept that there's a damaging river with blue keys
hanging from the ceiling. At the end of the river, there's a blue key you can actually pick up. The tricky part about this is that you
don't usually have enough health to survive walking on the damaging river. So the only way to make it is to find a rad suit, that will
let you get across the river without taking (much except leaky) damage. Just the main concept that if you can technically access the
exit near the start of the map with a rad suit, is just interesting progression in of itself.

Once you get the blue key though, you do have one final ambush of viles and some medusas. The main point of the medusas is to stop you
from rushing to the exit. So you you've left alive a Cyberdemon, or hate elementals, the medusas make it much harder to make it past.
Get past them though, and you're teleported back to the start of the map where you can get in your ship and exit. I'm not sure what else
to say about this map, except that it's weird but very fun. It's messing with normal level progression expectations... Athough in a way
E2M2 kinda did that in some way, so this is kinda just a revisit. Luckily the weirder maps are to come.

One final thing I'll mention. If you can find a hidden way to get past the damaging river... you can actually exit the map really fast.
There is a hidden room which can be opened by a blue door, but is only accessible if you haven't yet done the red key barrel puzzle.



==== [3333: H4i_0] ====

Author: Arsinikk
Music: "World In My Eyes" - Depeche Mode
Difficulty: Hollow Tomb

Author Commentary:
I would usually start out with saying this map is an oddball, but to be honest, all of E3 is full of odd maps, so.... It should come
as no surprise that with the episode name being "Event Horizon" and with the theme being set in outer space, there'd be some kind of
reference to the sci-fi film of the same name. This map follows a similar idea, except instead of a spaceship being evil, it's the
halo-shaped space station that's evil. It's maybe worth noting that the current name of the map "Halo" used to actually be "Helena",
in that the space station itself is called the "U.S.S. Helena". I think I just thought that the name "halo" worked better since the
space station is in a circle shape, and there's already a banner near the start of the map that says "Welcome to the USS Helena".

So this map is a very big map with lots of linedefs and things. It doesn't seem like a big deal, but for Vanilla, the map was very rough
to get working under the save game buffer... Basically trying to get the correct amount of things without getting Vanilla to explode,
was quite challenging. This being the case, this map is quite strange in that there's basically zero enemies in the map. There is an
enemy that's killed near the start of the map, but that's basically just to get the intermission to say 100% kills instead of 0%.
So even with a map with no enemies, to have this much trouble staying under the save game buffer, is quite crazy.

This map actually features a mechanic that I actually made for an unreleased map which was going to be my first wad which included my
first map Purple Rain. Basically the map had a door mechanic similar to Memento Mori II's MAP07 (Frustration). That map had a door where
depending when you pressed on the door it would open at different heights... The annoying part about this map is that there was no
indication of when you would be able to open the door. In my unreleased map, I had a similar door setup but the difference was I had a
red/green marker that showed when the player could actually open the door or not. And so I finally got to use this door setup from my
old map in E3M3. Of course, I guess the downside with how it's used here is that you aren't actually being attacked by monsters, while
being forced to wait until the door can be opened... But in a weird way, maybe it's better this way, since the silent nature of waiting
for the door adds to the atmosphere of the map and RUST episode 3 as a whole.

I really wanted to dig deep into horror in this map... Partly cuz the concept was similar to the "Event Horizon" film, but also to try
and spruce up the atmosphere for a map without monsters. And so how do you do that? Well you begin with visual storytelling. The only way
you can progress is through the only door that's stained with blood with the blood written messages "save us" and "God is dead"... Over
the top? maybe, but obviously something really bad happened on this station. Enter the dining hall, and all you see is blood and dead
corpses everywhere. Something really REALLY bad happened here. It's here that a simple no combat section is already building up anticipation
for something. It is not until you make it into the kitchen and get locked in the damaging freezer, that the shoe has finally dropped.
The weird thing about the threats in this map is that since it's the station itself, there's no scary monster noise. It's just the map
itself triggering traps using sector / door sounds. Which changes the mundane into a sense of unease.

One thing I really wanted to figure out is "how can I make the map itself a monster?". Using a monster that moves with projectiles is
rather easy. However making the map itself a threat is harder... The first trap of the map is locking the player in a damaging room.
its simple yet effective. Later on, there's a crate maze with a bunch of blood marks, where you step where the blood is, a crusher comes
down instantly killing the player. These are essentially environmental hazards, with the lore changing it to be the station itself.
Interestingly one trap in the map was added extremely late in development, yet again after the map was considered "finished". In the
north area there is a UAC hologram section that felt a bit under baked... In fact I actually had a plan to expand this section into a
holographic shooting range, where you had to shoot switches in order all in a sequence. Unfortuntely due to the size of the level and
the savegame buffer I had to scrap this concept. So that left me with a hologram room which kinda didn't do anything. It just felt like a
section that was missing content. That was until I had an idea. This north room, was the only place that didn't have a trap... So how
could I add a trap without adding a full new section of the map? Well what if I cause a hull breach and make the whole room damaging,
with a hole breaking open in this wing of the station? Well turns out, that makes this section of the map much more threatening and
alot more engaging. And even better it reinforces the idea of an evil station trying to kill the player. In that it would literally
rip apart its hull to throw its prey out into space, if it meant it got them off the station.

Speaking of the crate room. I hate crate mazes. Why do I keep forcing myself to do crate mazes in RUST? Ok I should explain exactly
why I hate crate mazes. I don't hate the concept of crate mazes. In fact Doom's E2M2 is a really great crate maze. I hate crate mazes
because mappers that tend to put crate mazes in their maps, they usually make them very uninteresting. So my problem is more that I don't
like crate mazes cuz I feel that I need to do something to make them unique and interesting. And in order to do that, it's alot of work
to create interesting and engaging crate mazes. This maze has a couple of twists that make it stand out from other RUST crate mazes.
There's kind of two crate mazes in Episode 1. E1M3 has a more traditional crate maze although there is some uniqueness in that there's
a bottom floor layer where you're surrounded by crates, and then you get to traverse the crates on a top layer. Actually now that I think
about it, while being a shorter crate maze, E1M6's section does a similar lower and then upper crate maze layer. There's a crate maze in
E2M5, but aesthetically it's very different with wood crates. And funny enough you do also have the lower and then upper level crate
traversal. Then you get to E3M3's crate maze, which uses metal futuristic crates. Funny enough E3M3's crate maze also has the lower and
upper crate maze layers. There is an added twist though with the blood areas becoming crate crushers. And navigating the crate maze upper
layer is a bit more puzzly than in previous crate maze maps. Basically sorta similar to E3M2, there's an damaging area where you must
find a rad suit to get through. So you must solve the crate maze traversal puzzle to get a rad suit. Funny enough there is a rad suit
on the bottom level, but it's also a crusher that instantly kills you, so fun trap :P

I almost glossed over the reveal of the first dark entity enemy in the maze. As you enter the maze to your right there are barrels, and
to your left is a dark entity... that moves towards you! keep in mind that dark entities have been always watchers and you can see them
all throughout episode 1 and 2. But they either only sat and watched or immediately disappeared. Here though, this is the first time they
are an enemy. This introduction is great because so far this map has had no enemies, and all of a sudden there's something moving towards.
Double the fact that dark entities don't count towards the kill count. This whole time you've seen these enemies watching, and maybe they
were a little spooky, but they weren't threatening. Now they can kill you. The design of the enemy is interesting because they do not have
a wake up sound... They just see you and move towards you. They only attack you when getting within melee range or when entering their pain
state. When they attack, they will do a lunge attack, and at far enough distances, they will continue to attack until hitting a wall or
obstacle. They are relentless and also very dangerous. Most of the time these enemies are a one hit kill, which I think fits very well with
a RUST only type enemy and how they fit within the story. Luckily they are pretty easy to dispatch, although that is also kinda eerie because
they don't make any sound, they just disappear. Lore-wise they aren't even killed, they are just sent back to their dimensional plane. I also
think it's kinda funny that this intro for them is another red herring, in that it makes you think they are responsible for the station's
corruption, when they could just be another force which just so happened to show up by coincidence.

The overall goal of the map is to hit 3 switches in the west, north, and south parts of the map. These open tunnels which lead to the centre
area of the map. Do these in order and it reveals access to the centre reactor. Which uses a cool mikoportal feature so that it's constantly
scrolling downward. Taking this sends you to yet another static section where you get to fight more of the dark entities. I really like how
this arena is laid out, and how it really shows the player how the enemies work. Escape the static dimension and then you can finally go back
to your ship and exit to the next map.

Finally, it's worth noting that there is a super secret area in the crate maze that's a reference to Wolf3D's AARDWOLF. The maze's progression
is extremely confusing, but if you can figure it out, it's pretty cool!



==== [3EM4: X17EH_H3L1X] ====

Author: Scypek2
Music: "I'm Looking Forward To Joining You, Finally" - NIN
Difficulty: Stomach-churning

Author Commentary:
There's something oddly satisfying about recurring patterns in a medium such as a videogame with levels and episodes, especially when the
patterns eventually evolve or get broken. Getting the biggest gun immediately handed to you at the end of Doom 2 or Wolf3D's third episode
feels so monumental when you have to hunt for it on every level prior, and getting tricked by something like the fake exit in Doom's E2M6
for the first time feels just a little world-shattering. Having a spaceship mimic that eats you wasn't my first idea for the guest map,
but I think it was inevitable that this is what I ultimately settled on.

Inside the mimic, I finally got to incorporate a puzzle I came up with years ago but never got around to using - a hidden path that gets
revealed, taking advantage of Doom's bleeding floor textures, and some teleporter textures being different in the center but identical on
the edges. On the opposite end of the map, I added a puzzle inspired by Superliminal - a short and linear, but undoubtedly fun game.
Finally, because it wouldn't feel quite right to escape the mimic just by finding a key and opening a door letting you outside its body,
I instead made an invulnerability sphere the final ingredient to victory, for the second time in my mapping career. And then you get
mutated on your way out and briefly wander around at half size with echolocation instead of sight until you manage to crawl into a gene
unscrambler.

I'm quite pleased with the few custom textures I made for the map too, especially the fleshy simulacra of computer screens, with the mimic
trying to guess which letters are the most likely to come after which and ending up with GENETIC SEQUEXIT and RADIANGER. It was an interesting
balance to strike, trying to convey through both textures and architecture that this is an alien being trying to replicate human tech instead
of a more typical Shores of Hell style mix.



==== [E3W5: H4LCY0N] ====

Author: Arsinikk
Music: "Oberkorn" - Depeche Mode
Difficulty: Like RUST

Author Commentary:
I like to call this the "Greatest Hits" map. This is the map, where like in a greatest hits album, the areas in this map resemble areas
in the previous episode. This is the kind of map that mappers give players when they are like "you like the old stuff, here ya go!".
Following the previous maps so far, while Scypek2's E3M4 was slightly a bit normal (besides you know being a guest mapper so it feels
different in another way), all of the previous E3 maps have been strange and try to subvert expectations. This map in contrast does a
complete 180, and instead goes back to playing like the other RUST episodes. This may seem a bit jarring, but in a way this being a more
normal map does kinda work as a subversion in of itself. Plus there is a very particular reason why I think this works way better than
it should. After this map is when maps start really getting weird! :)

This map is really huge. Like so big that getting it to run in Vanilla required me to manually exclude linedefs from the blockmap big.
This map also goes way over the savegame buffer. As a result, I tried to be a bit nicer when it comes to combat ambushes and avoid evil
death traps. Funny enough, E3M4 used to go over the savegame buffer, but I asked Scypek2 to get it under so that you could at least
not have to go through 2 big maps in Vanilla without saving. Especially since E3M4 can be like 45 min map. E3M5 can easily be 20-30
minutes and that's when you know what you're doing... A blind playthrough will probably be quite a bit longer.

The map starts with a mountain vista. Not joking, I think this is best looking opening shot in RUST. Actually scwiba said that E3M5
was a beautiful looking map, so that's quite surprising to see in a D!ZONE inspired wad :P Basically the first part of the map is walking
into a facility via the lobby and making it to a super secret UAC weapon. I really like how the giant lobby looks with the hedges. Also fun
fact, the doors in the lobby actually move using a trick with barrels blocking doors from fully closing. The way you get on to the upper
level is kinda fun, cuz originally I just had it so that after you raised the steps you could just walk up the stairs, but Galileo said
that I should swap the switches to lower the switch on the other side... Which actually felt a bit more D!ZONE but also was good for
drawsegs. Up on the top level is one of the coolest visual effects in RUST. It's a holographic sphere which says R U S T on each direction
you look at it from. I actually got this idea from a 90s WAD I randomly found while checking out the "random idgames" feature.

I feel like getting to the new super weapon is pretty cinematic... I mean getting a weapon in a reactor isn't something you see everyday.
I did a pretty fancy trick as the weapon lowers down. The idea is that the weapon exited out of the drainage pipe. I actually use something
similar to mikoportal to get the weapon to lower down really fast via a lift action... then the lift will continue to lower down forever.
An actual fun fact about this, I tend to use merged sector to move the sound origin of sectors. And here I did this with this lift sector,
which running in CRL or Chocolate Doom was fine... But in DOS it would slow the game down to a crawl. I had to move the merged sector so that
it wasn't merged to a sector part across the whole map, and that seemed to fix the DOS issue.

The actual BFG weapon reveal is interesting... I'm not sure if people will fully understand exactly how it works from its introduction. Basically
it's like a normal bfg, but has a railgun aspect to it... So while the projectile is in the air, it will constantly explode, hurting or killing
enemies in its radius. However if it hits an enemy, it does not explode, and the railgun aspect is lost. Once the hit happens, then a normal BFG
attack will happen. So it's like a new better BFG in a way. It's slightly different while having a unique spin. The setup is supposed to showcase
the weapon by having a bunch of shotgunners in the reactor... Since they are fodder enemies, it's more likely that it will tear through enemies
so that you can see the effect happen in real time. Although I guess it may be less obvious since the player is on 20 damaging floor and needs to
concentrate on killing the enemies while filling up on soul spheres. When coming back into the RUST Hologram room, I like that you can look to the
sides of the corridor to see that the fuel rods have been depleted after acquiring the BFG.

There are two areas you then get to after getting the BFG. There is an ammo stash room (which I call the star wars room) and then there's the
room which has a smaller monolith in a containment chamber. I forget what wad I watched from a Spectere video which inspired me to do make the
star wars room (sorry). The observation room has a fun little puzzle to do to get inside the monolith. Now once you enter this monolith is where
you get to the greatest hits sections. I think my main idea for this map was to give the best weapon in the game (whoa wait a minute, I thought
that was the chainsaw, sorry Spectere ;) ), and then have it be a sort of power fantasy map, while revisiting some of the old RUST ideas. So here
the map gives you a choice between 3 areas. I'll call them "city", "castle", and "concrete". These each are pretty different from one another.

Let's first talk about the smallest section "concrete". Basically this is a call back to the aesthetic of E2M6, which starts with a "chasm"-like
walkway, to the funniest ambush with a bunch of flamethrower invisiguys surrounding a flamethrower. The idea for this section is that there's a
bunch of lost souls that you are kinda supposed to ignore, and then grab the flamethrower and wait for the bridge to raise to continue. The next
section that was added later in development is a the "flying" section. Basically similar to mikoportals, this section is at the limit of Doom
sector heights, where it will teleport you up to the ceiling. Eventually after continuing to fall, the player will stabilise and then glide along
the ceiling. Even more fun is that while in this state, the player will then stay glued to the ceiling, giving the illusion that they are flying.
Some people call this effect peccaportals, but they are very similar to mikoportals. Also yes this is just a showcase section showing off obscure
Doom tech :P  Last but not least you enter an area that looks like a concrete stonehenge. I say it like this, because the middle geometry is
literally a slightly retextured / reworked version of my map "Stonehenge" from "Hell Revealations". Although this fight reintroduces the stone
golem enemies, this time with a Cyberdemon in the mix. So again, this is a heavy callback to E2M6. While this is the shortest section, I do think
it has its memorable parts.

Next let's talk about the "castle" section. "Castle" seemed like a weird word, but I didn't exactly know what to call this section. It's basically
like a road down memory lane of RUST E2, with a similar jungle / natural aesthetic, with some of the chaotic combat. I'm really proud of the
cross entrance and I think it looks sick. The next area has a fight with medusas and lost souls, and is probably the hardest fight in the map.
Basically the medusas are nasty. I think the part afterwards is probably the most memorable part of this section though. I guess I'll call this
the marble cube puzzle... Basically you must find the correct path, or get attacked by around 8 hate elementals. This visual effect will mess up
on most OpenGL renderer because I used a midtexture bleed underneath floor. I ended up doing this effect, actually because my original idea was to
just have floating cubes casting a shadow... Unfortunately this setup caused alot of visplanes, and so I ended up doing the midtexture bleed effect
to emulate a sort of mirror effect to show where the cubes were, without running into visplane issues. I'd say that all in all, limitation bred
creativity here.

Finally the "city" section. You may recall that I had originally started this section for E3M1. Well it seems that I moved it here to this map.
The downside to having a city section in a map, is that you kinda need to populate it, else it feels empty. I mean actually to be fair, an empty
city could work as a concept, but I guess I wasn't feeling that here. This results in this section being the longest section in the map. Not
necessarily because it is long to complete, but probably because of it being a city, people often want to go exploring the optional content.
I had alot of fun creating custom billboards / graphics for each of the buildings. And of course I couldn't resist doing a gag of Spectere's
"love" for the chainsaw with his own branded gas station. I don't really have much else to say except that I do think the city section is a
big highlight of the map.

Once you finish the 3 sections, a teleport opens which allows you to go back and exit the map via the spaceship... Oh but wait. It seems like
your spaceship is broken now... This is what I was talking about before when I said that there was a rhythm of starting and exiting via the
spaceship, which is then broken here. Although in E3M4, I guess it does have a fake spaceship mimic that kinda sets you up to expect weirdness
Still the act of having to walk back away from the spaceship here is an important moment. As you try to walk back to the facility, the floor caves
beneath you, revealing a tunnel. Follow the tunnel down and... Oh no! Random teleport into a static section! This time with more than a dozen dark
entities. Run through them and you make it to the final room. This now marks the first map where the exit is not from the spaceship. Enter the
exit and then you are greeted by a death exit... into E3MX/E3M9... Which is where the weirdness really starts happening because you just skipped
E3M6. Or should I say, there is no E3M6 in RUST :)

Ah also if you're wondering about the hidden puzzle section that was scrapped from E3M1? That's hidden in the map somewhere. Maybe look around in
the monolith hub area ;)



==== [33LX: H4D35] ====

Author: Arsinikk
Music: "Somewhat Damaged" - NIN
Difficulty: Purgatory

Author Commentary:
There are so many factors that make this the best map in RUST for me. It's really less about the map itself and more about the context surrounding
it. This is the most D!ZONE map of RUST, specifically because it is an edit of Doom's E3M9. So in that sense, it actually may be the most D!ZONE
inspired map. Typically when people would make IWAD map edits, most people would find it boring or disappointing, since it's not their own work.
I feel E3MX is different all because of expectations. Put this into perspective: You beat E3M5... You're expecting E3M6, but you get the secret
map instead. The beginning of the map looks identical to Doom's E3M9... But there's some minor differences. Then when you run into the exit, and
find yourself going through the intermission screen, it restarts you on the same map. On the intermission it has the text "Play Continuously until
you reach the spire". It's from this, that you may start to realise, this is not a normal map. There's alot more to this map than it seems. I mean
besides the D!ZONE IWAD edit reference, this edit has been tailored towards player expectations, and then you throw in the "restart the same map over
and over" mechanic. And then even if you find the correct progression, you'll be greeted by a door that says "30 sec" on it. So now we have a mechanic
where you must speedrun your way through the map to beat a timer. Restarting the same map is now a mechanic.

It's worth noting that I had the idea of using E3M9 to constantly restart the map to beat a level before this. This is because if you are on a secret
map in Doom 1, taking a secret exit will always take you to a secret map. So then you have a never ending loop. The IWAD edit was actually suggested
to me as a joke... More like "Ha! You should just have E3M9 as E3M9"... Which at first I was not a fan of doing any IWAD edits. I don't ever use
other maps to add stuff to my maps. I consider that plagiarism. But then I had the idea of D!ZONE and IWAD edit maps, and I realised that this was
the perfect way to have a tribute to D!ZONE while messing with player's expectations. I will admit when I had my playtesters try out the map, I was
really concerned about me using an IWAD map as a basis... But the reception from it was all positive, in that they thought that I transformed it
enough into its own thing that it actually worked. I was seeing this map idea as a sort of gamble, but seems like my execution made it worth it.

One minor thing I'd like to mention near the start of the map, is after crossing the secret bridge to the shotgun (you know like in Doom's E3M1/E3M9),
the floor is actually messed up and doesn't change texture. This is actually a reference to an old version of Doom which this actually happened in.
In addition it also made a certain sector in the next room crash the game in this old version! I just did a texture change there, so that it's also
a reference but doesn't crash the game :)

The map starts out as normal Doom E3M9 but with minor changes... Then once you find your way through the first 30 sec door, you play through the same
sort of layout of E3M9 but with more things messed up / corrupted, and with the layout mirrored. It's sorta disorienting, but familiar at the same
time. Obviously in this section, the combat is all new with RUST enemies. There is also deliberately tutti-frutti textures and corrupted flats to
really emphasise the corrupted nature of the map.

At one point, you will notice there are a bunch of "false" exits that end up restarting the map. So the goal is to make it to the spire to actually
beat the map proper and escape the exit loop. After a certain point, you will finally make it into new areas that are not from the IWAD map. These
are actually scrapped sections from that wad from my first map Purple Rain. The sections were heavily altered and retextured to fit the aesthetic.
There are actual new sections in the map though. Like there's a Cacodemon teleport area that's completely brand new. Also after you find and get
through the second 30 sec door, that area is literally a section I made by overlapping two different maps on top of each other (and doing some
cleanup). The final fight area actually had an unintentional "feature" where there's a platform with super weird collision where the cybers that
teleport on top of it can instantly fall down. I accidentally created this, but I thought it was amazing, so I kept it in. I think my favourite
part of this map is a random nodebuilder fail I discovered where you could see through into other parts of the map... Instead of fixing it, I
instead put a voodoo doll in the view, and put a candle next to it, to get players to come and see the jank window :P

I guess one last thing I could add is that the final spire actually used to be static... But after I completed E3M7, and it had a black and red
only aesthetic, I decided to change the spire to a crimson red-only spire, which I think works better as a map transition. And yes just if the map
couldn't be weirder enough, I added another death exit... this time not stripping your weapons away, but just forcing you to enter the next map
with little health.



==== [7731-1] ====

Author: Arsinikk
Music: "7731-1" - Arsinikk (bespoke)
Difficulty: 7731-1

Author Commentary:
If this was a normal wad, it might have a weird map in the rotation, but then go back to some normalcy... Well buddy, I hate to inform you, but this
is RUST and we've hit the Event Horizon, so there's no going back now. If you haven't figured out the title's meaning, it's like using a calculator
and turning it upside down: "HELL". Now since Doom has always had a "hell" theme, many mappers often try to depict hell the same way the IWADs did.
But I feel that using the same fire and brimstone depiction of hell has lost its luster and just isn't scary. "Hell" should be something unknown
and frightening because you cannot discern what it is you're seeing. I take this to another level with "7731-1". The entirety of map is in 2 colours:
red and black. They aren't just shades either. They are straight bright red and pure black. The lore reason for this is that humans in this realm
cannot comprehend what they are seeing, so the human eye can only distinguish between two colours. I really liked this concept, as it means that
tech textures or flesh textures, may not actually be those, it's just what our brain tries to make sense of. It could be something else entirely.

The way I made this map is kinda funny actually. I basically took all of the Doom 1 textures, and then converted them into just red and black.
Then I used that texture resource to build the map. Once I got a finished map, I then only grabbed the textures I used, renamed them, and then put
them in the final RUST wad. Sometimes it pays off being a Doom Source Port Developer, as I discovered that transparent midtextures actually use
the same code for sprites... Meaning that you could have midtextures taller than 128 pixels. So obviously I abused that quite a bit in this map.

I consider this map as like the final encounter map. Usually I do like to have a big bad boss enemy, but doing that in Doom is kinda tough, and
well I've already used up all my Dehacked on the other custom enemies. So what I decided to go with is using ghost monsters. Ghost monsters are
created when a monster has been crushed and then they are resurrected by an Archvile. There's a "bug" (or "feature"? :P ) where the enemies height
is changed to zero (when they turn into a crushed corpse), but when they are resurrected, the height isn't reset. The result is that these enemies
can walk through walls. So with having this specific aesthetic having an unusual state of an enemy, just really makes sense. It's very RUST "coded"
as well as just being spooky. I already knew about this behaviour before. I've done a similar mechanic in 100 Line Massacre MAP08. I just feel
that this one does the mechanic justice.

This map's atmosphere and aesthetic is heavily influenced / inspired by the original Silent Hill 2, one of my favourite games of all time. One thing
that always bothers me with Doom mappers is that they don't understand how horror works. Like oftentimes once you introduce enemies, the horror goes
away. Because in Doom, if you have weapons, you can just kill them. So weirdly enough having enemies that you can only kill through specific means,
like with ghost monsters getting killed by splash damage, does make the atmosphere more tense. I think the hard thing about horror is it's all about
balance. There's downtime, anticipation, and then release. Oftentimes the scariest part isn't the actual monster or jumpscare... It's thinking about
what could be lurking in the dark behind the corner, or what could be staring at you off in the void. Silent Hill 2 captures this really well. In
this map there's a section that's heavily inspired by a room in Silent Hill 2. In the prison, there is a giant room called the yard. On the map,
it is the biggest room in the game, where it has low visibility and is pitch dark. As you walk through this room, there are sounds that move around
you like horses galloping. It's unsettling because of how the sound moves in stereo... Almost like the galloping comes up behind you, and then fades
away. In the middle there's a platform with three nooses. Even though nothing really happens in this room, there's something that's stuck with me.
Not that nothing happens, but like it sounds like something could happen at any moment. It builds a sense of dread. Anyway from that description,
I think you can recognise the room in the map that kinda was inspired by that.

As far as final Doom wad fights go, I'm pretty happy with what I ended up with. You're in a big room, with alternating randomly moving pillars.
When the fight is triggered a bunch of Cyberdemons are released... Which doesn't sound too interesting. However once you fire another shot, a bunch
of ghost monsters will come in from the sides of the arena. What makes this fight interesting is that the cybers will try and fight the ghosts, but
they shoot through them some of the time... But since ghosts get hurt by the splash damage, they sometimes can get killed when close to the pillars
from rocket splash damage. An added dynamic to this fight which I didn't actually realise at first, is that due to how the BFG weapon works, you can
actually kill the ghost monsters with the BFG, since the railgun exploding attack actually does splash damage. If there was ever a final fight that
could fit RUST, it would be this one.

The finale of this map is actually quite a big one. In the map there's a bunch of references to a 7th floor. It's never explicitly stated what it
means (I mean I know of course :P ), but it's very clear that it means something important. This map ends with the player heading down the stairs
from the 7th floor... As in the player finally leaves the 7th floor they've been visiting for so long...



==== [1M: H0M3] ====

Author: Arsinikk
Music: "Satellite (Live)" - Depeche Mode
Difficulty: UACFlix

Author Commentary:
Usually the final map of an episode is the final confrontation. A big action packed setpiece that ends the episode after a long big fight. RUST doesn't
do that. RUST had its fight in the last map. So now all you gotta do is relax... on the 6th floor... There's a 6th floor? :)  You can see E3M8 as an
epilogue style map... Which it partly is. But interestingly I feel like it does have a confrontation, just not with combat or puzzles. More of the mind.
Didn't I say earlier that we hit the Event Horizon? And so how odd is it that we are now in this normal looking map after what came just before. Surely
this is not normal?

If you've played the map, you know that there's a big reveal at the end of RUST. I feel like if you think of this map in that way, it's actually more
terrifying than even 7731-1. A different kind of horror, but alas. This map actually took me a while due to how much Doomcute is in the map. It's kinda
funny cuz I don't typically like doing Doomcute, but I always end up doing it. Maybe it's cuz I feel that a space feels empty and I need to fill it with
something. Technically this map has one enemy, which funny enough builds up some anticipation as like a potential big bad... But it's just an enemy killed
off screen similar to E3M3 for the 100% kill count.

There is a little mini puzzle at the start of the map, with some fancy vanilla conveyor elevator setup that is something you probably wouldn't find in
a 90s wad... But like I had to show off my vanilla talents :P  The big lobby room is obviously partly a reference to the lobby room of the old 90s wad
UAC Dead. Funny enough originally that was the only reference, until when I showed off a screenshot in my NANOWADMO server channel, someone asked for a
sideways car... And so I added a crashed sideways car in the outside area as another reference. I do think that the added detail does add alot to the map.

The most important part of the map was the big reveal at the end... which sadly in my first iteration really failed to hit home what was happening. There
were 2 issues I kept running into. First off, the mechanism I had for keeping the player in an area was janky... and I couldn't figure out why. My friend
Christophine Place helped me figure out it was some weird vanilla heights jank that was breaking the setup (I basically had a sector that was above 512 or
below -512, which vanilla is really weird about). The other issue though is that the reveal wasn't as clear as it could be. I got some help from Christophine
and Hayden49 on how to make the reveal more obvious, and I think the map's better for it.

Ah also there's a fun secret hidden room before you take the elevator where you need to find hidden switches. Take a harder look in the bathroom :)



===========
[10] CREDITS
===========

Mapping:                 - Arsinikk  - All Maps (except below)
                         - Large Cat - E2MX
                         - Scypek2   - E3M4
 
Music:                   - TITLE: "Breathe" - Arsinikk
                         - INTERMISSION: "Take It Off" - Ke$ha
                         - READ ME: "Wish (Arsinikk's Slowed Mix)" - Nine Inch Nails
                         - ENDING: "Help Me I Am In Hell (Arsinikk's Glitch Mix)" - Nine Inch Nails

                         - E1M1: "The Hand That Feeds" - Nine Inch Nails
                         - E1M2: "The Becoming" - Nine Inch Nails*
                         - E1M3: "Head Like a Hole" - Nine Inch Nails*
                         - E1M4: "The Great Below" - Nine Inch Nails*
                         - E1M5: "Breed" - Nirvana
                         - E1M6: "Heresy" - Nine Inch Nails*
                         - E1M7: "The Downward Spiral" - Nine Inch Nails
                         - E1M8: "The Broken EP (Medley)"- Nine Inch Nails***
                         - E1MX: "Sonne" - Rammstein

                         - E2M1: "Jump in the Fire" - Metallica*
                         - E2M2: "Devil's Dance" - Metallica*
                         - E2M3: "My Apocalypse" - Metallica*
                         - E2M4: "Reptile" - Nine Inch Nails
                         - E2M5: "The Call of Ktulu" - Metallica**
                         - E2M6: "Hurt (Arsinikk's Dark Mix)" - Nine Inch Nails
                         - E2M7: "The Perfect Drug" - Nine Inch Nails*
                         - E2M8: "Battery"- Metallica*
                         - E2MX: "Eye" - The Smashing Pumpkins*

                         - 33M1: "Strangelove" - Depeche Mode
                         - E3L2: "Fools" - Depeche Mode*
                         - 3333: "World In My Eyes" - Depeche Mode
                         - 3EM4: "I'm Looking Forward To Joining You, Finally" - Nine Inch Nails*
                         - E3W5: "Oberkorn" - Depeche Mode
                         - 33LX: "Somewhat Damaged" - Nine Inch Nails**
                         - 7731-1: "7731-1" - Arsinikk (bespoke)
                         - 1M: "Satellite (Live)" - Depeche Mode*

                            * Minor edits to mix / midis were made by Arsinikk
                           ** Midi was heavily altered by Arsinikk to sound more similar to the source material
                          *** Medley includes "Pinion / Wish / Last / Help Me I Am In Hell"


Sound:                   - Dark Teeth SFX - Realm667
                         - Toximp (Green Imp) SFX - Realm667
                         - Medusa SFX - Realm667
                         - Lock-on SFX (DSMANATK) - RTC-3057: Blue (Team Future)
                         - Nightmare Attack SFX (DSRADIO) - Heretic (Raven Software)
                         - Skinwalker Death SFX - Revenant Death SFX from Corruption
                         - Doom II SFX - id Software
                         - Dark Entity SFX (DSPESIT) - Arsinikk
                         - E1M8 Announcement - Andrea Powell
                         - Icon of Sin Pain / Death SFX - Arsinikk and id Software (base)
                         - Flashlight Break SFX (DSDBCLS) - Arsinikk
                         - E2M6 Golem SFX (DSSSSIT, DSSSDTH, DSFLAMST) - Arsinikk
                         - E2M7 Glass Break SFX (DSMANDTH) - Arsinikk
                         - Marine Vessel See SFX (DSDSHTGN) - Arsinikk Edit of Cleimos II sound effect
                         - Marine Vessel Roam SFX (DSMANSIT) - GNTACT1 from Hexen (Raven Software)
                         - Marine Vessel Roam SFX (DSSAWIDL) - ???
                         - Marine Vessel Attack SFX (DSSAWFUL) - Torch SFX from Hexen (Raven Software)
                         - Chimera Death SFX (DSBOSPIT) - terrifying-scream-353210 (Pixaby)
                         - Chimera Pain SFX (DSTINK) - Doom Zero


Graphics:                - Statusbar GFX, all menu GFX, Intermission / Text Screen GFX, etc. - Arsinikk
                         - "Doom 93" Font Base for level / episode names - Jimmy
                         - Episode 1-2 Intermission map base - id Software

                          
Textures:                - Elysion.wad by Death-Destiny
                            - Rain sprite base

                         - EOB.WAD and EOB2S.WAD by Jon Landis
                            - SKY2 by John Krutke

                         - Chasm: The Rift
                            - Episode 2 "EXIT" door (BIGEXTD2-3)

                         - Daikatana
                            - E2M3 Marble Medusa Face - Edit by Arsinikk

                         - GALAXIA.WAD by Pavel Hodek
                            - WACKLITE
                            - E2M5 WOODBOX (edit by Arsinikk)

                         - SANDSDTH.WAD by Alberto Barsella
                            - E2M6 "DARKROCK/LITEROCK/SW*LEVER"

                         - "Cleimos II" by Rand and Steven Phares
                            - E2M8 "CLFENCE1"

                         - #kill the next generation
                            - green lite
                            - brown marble
                            - red rock textures
                            - gray rockwall
                            - MIDGRAT* texture
                            - red shawn / comp panels
                            - various coloured marble variants
                            - various coloured ashwall variants
                            - comp panel textures
                            - tan lobby texture
                            - red/green door / switch base (edit by Arsinikk)

                         - Eternal Doom
                            - glass / glass break

                         - Obituary / SUDTIC.WAD by the Innocent Crew
                            - E2M4 Pentagram (EVILPENT)
                            - Vine Pentagram Doors / Walls (BIGDOOR8/9/X + VINESYM1/2)
                            - E3M5 Wood pentagram / skull door (DOORROB)
                            - Alt exit sign / danger sign
                            - Purple teleport (GATE5)
                            - E3M3 Blood on tile flat (FLAT11)
                            - Caution tape / silver textures
                            - E3M8 Railing

                         - Dark Forces
                            - E3M2 Dark Marble (+ sunlight) Textures
                            - E3M3 Metal X pipe texture
                            - E3M3 ICEWALL and ICEFLAT textures

                         - Lostres
                            - Old small Metal1 textures
                            - Coloured icon signs
                            - Gray pipe texture
                            - Red grid UAC textures
                            - COMP1** and COMP2** flats

                         - Phobos (PHOBOS.WAD)
                            - Reactor / Fuel Textures (E3M5)
                            - Dark silver (and radiation) textures (E3M5)
                            - Rust Metal Wall Textures
                            - Animated computer panel texture

                         - Doom 3 (Abhoth)
                            - Abstract gate (gray/red) [E3M2 / E3M7]
                            - E3M7 Sigil

                         - Doom Zero
                            - E3M7 VIENS texture

                         - AMOK10T.WAD
                            - E3M7-8 gold cube textures
							
						 - Scypek2
						    - SHIPTRAP texture
							- E3M4EXI* textures
							- MIM*** textures

                         - Arsinikk
                            - Stock texture edits
                            - E3 Sky Texture (STARS1-3)
                            - Futuristic Door Frame (Dark Forces Base)
                            - Faded gray / black rock textures
                            - Target / shoot switch
                            - Tarp / containment textures
                            - Welcome Home textures
                            - Any other textures or flats
                         
                          
Sprites:                 - Blood drop sprites by Hayden49
                         - Bullet puff sprites from HACX
                         - Rain Sprite Base - Elysion.wad by Death-Destiny
                         - Toximp (Green Imp) - EOB.wad by Jon Landis
                         - Dark Teeth Weapon Sprites - Corridor 8 (Capstone Software), Id software, KILLA DIO
                         - Dark Teeth Pickup Sprites - Corridor 8 (Base), Arsinikk (Animation)
                         - Flashlight Sprites - Alando1, osjclatchford, Eriance, id Software, 3D Realms
                         - Flashlight Break GFX - Arsinikk (with lightning GFX from Hexen by Raven Software)
                         - Dark Entity (HDB1**) - Arsinikk, Evilneck, id Software
                         - Dark Entity Attack Sprites - Arsinikk
                         - Rocket Zombie GFX - OBITUARY by The Innocent Crew
                         - 6th weapon / projectile GFX - OBITUARY by The Innocent Crew
                         - 7th weapon - base from Hallows Eve 199x (HDoomGuy/Mike12), edited by Arsinikk
                         - 7th weapon projectile - Arsinikk
                         - Marine Vessel (Invisiguy) GFX - Based on Obituary, edited by Arsinikk
                         - Purple Barrel GFX - Arsinikk
                         - Chimera GFX - Arsinikk
                         - Nightmare GFX - Arsinikk
                         - Skinwalker GFX - Heavily Edited by Arsinikk (base GFX from "Melee Revenant" by 00_Zombie_00)
                         - Medusa GFX - Rolls, Raven Software
                         - Golem GFX - Edit of "Stone Imp" by Blue Shadow, Espi, Vader, MidoriMan
                         - Hate Elemental GFX - Mixed from "infernal (old)" by Amuscaria and Pain Elemental from Mordeth)
                         - Proto-drone (Arachontron) GFX - Jimmy
                         - E2M7 Cacodemon Death GFX - Arsinikk
                         - Torches - Heretic (Raven Software)
                         - Slime Trees (HDB5**) - Captain Toenail
                         - Everything else - Arsinikk


Playtesters:             - finnks13
                         - Large Cat
                         - NinjaDelphox
                         - Rencoret
                         - galileo31dos01
                         - Hayden49
                         - Christophine Place
                         - FrancisT218
                         - scwiba
						 
ENDOOM:					 - Zokum

CODEX Application:       - Programming, graphics, and written entries - Arsinikk
                         - Intro, music, passcode success + denied SFX - Arsinikk
                         - PC Idle SFX - POND5
                         - Mouse click, Keyboard press, and Ui beeps - Motion Array
                         - Proofreading - Andrea Powell (Arsinikk's Mom) and Large Cat
                         - Codex Application developed in Game Maker 8.1 by YoYoGames



==============
[11] KNOWN BUGS
==============

- OpenGL Renderers are NOT supported (you will come across visual oddities - Use Software Rendering) [E1M7, E2M2, E3M2, E3M3, E3M5]
- E1M7 / E1M8 / E2M6 / E3M5 will cause a crash when saving in Vanilla (Savegame Buffer Overflow).
- E*M8 maps will have full volume sounds throughout the whole level in Vanilla (This is correct Vanilla Behaviour)
- "New Game Plus" ignores some Vanilla limits such as the sprite limit and savegame buffer.
- Woof-based ports will mostly work with RUST under complevel 2.
- Correct "Read This!" behaviour only works correctly in Nyan Doom, DSDA-Doom, and ZDoom-ports.
- Only newer versions of DSDA Doom / PrBoom+ / Woof / Crispy Doom are demo-compatible due to certain weapon behaviour (This is most evident with a new weapon). This affects all vanilla complevels 0-4.
- RUST now supports UZDoom. Previous ZDoom versions are NOT supported and may act weird for certain enemies (Medusa).