Strangest bits of design in official DOOM packs?

Discussions on the worst maps, or the best maps, the clearly bad and good design, can definitely be fun. However, what I find most interesting are the moments which make you wonder, not in a frustrated way, but in a legitimately confused way, what the intent of something was, or just seem a bit unusual compared to the rest. So, I wanted to hear people's thoughts on the strangest parts, maps, sections, and general design choices from official DOOM.

One that comes to my mind is the red brick building in The Citadel. I get its intent of housing the teleporters as an optional area, but its almost futuristic, heavily-red internal design comes at odds with the citadel itself, along with the strange design of its rooms and the implementation of oddly placed crushers, make it a very odd place that tends to feel a bit unwelcome to enter, which I guess is a good thing for Doom, but it still feels like a very strange part of the map.

What about you? What struck you as just, odd when playing an official level?

that place with the weird crusher in MAP14 of doom 2 which almost feels like its under the level

1 hour ago, Xaser said:

This room from E2M6 always sticks out in my head, just for how unusual the border detailing is for an IWAD map:

 

It looks like something out of a late-90's/early-00's PWAD -- heck, I forgot this room even existed until doing the research for DTWID and discovering this incredibly un-TWID room right there in the original game. :P

The map that got Sandy a Job. Truly a wonderful map all around. 

Sandy's house in MAP16 always gives you that unwelcome feeling. The eyes in the kitchen area are just disturbing. You shoot them to reveal a secret.

The mandatory shoot-switch in MAP 18 of Doom 2, "The Courtyard" - it looks like a standard press-switch, no switch like that has ever been shootable before, and you've never had to shoot anything to open it before. So they had that one single shoot-switch at the start... and it wasn't even a tutorial for "shoot these to activate them" for later switches, it's just a one-off. Bizarre choice on many levels.

This area from Unholy Cathedral:

Not sure what its real purpose was besides hiding cacodemons in a corner, but I always saw it as some sort of confessional. And is what I made it be in my map for Second Mix.

Also the f10 symbol in the middle area:

3 minutes ago, Gothic said:

Also the f10 symbol in the middle area:

I really love that symbol, it feels like the glyphs of the Twilight realm in Twilight Princess (Perhaps this was meant to be the symbol for Hell? I'd love to see it return)

Otherwise, to me the strangest design choice is that skull cube in Plutonia MAP06 that gives you a bunch of weapons for walking under it.

How is this even a factory? What could even be made here?

2 hours ago, Gothic said:

Little kid me could never figure out why F10 was carved on to the wall here. Pressing the key just brung up some text I couldn't understand.

Now I know it's a trick from the demons to make you stop playing the game!

The entirety of Subspace from The Master Levels is bizarre beyond words, as well as the rest of Christen Klie's work. Absolutely love it though.

10 hours ago, neubejiita said:

How is this even a factory? What could even be made here?

Boredom, mostly 

8 hours ago, Cacodemon187 said:

Little kid me could never figure out why F10 was carved on to the wall here. Pressing the key just brung up some text I couldn't understand.

Now I know it's a trick from the demons to make you stop playing the game!

I was today years old when I realized it says "F10" :-|

This room in Spawning Vats, while rather cool looking, always felt so pointless to me.

27 minutes ago, RHhe82 said:

 

I was today years old when I realized it says "F10" :-|

Me too! Despite the hatred Unholy chatredal gets from the community, i found it a fascinating map somehow.

oooh that whole sewer area in TNT MAP12, that's a place i adore

and there's not too much reason to visit it iirc

i know i love optional map regions which just look like maintenance areas for higher profile map regions

16 hours ago, Jimmy² said:

the multi baron trap here was really rubbing the salt on the wound of the rest of this level

Having to press on an object to open something, like in E2M4 where you have to press on a pillar object to open up some bars to get a secret, or MAP22 where you press on a different color torch

21 hours ago, neubejiita said:

How is this even a factory? What could even be made here?

completely off topic, but what weapon/gameplay mod is that?

18 hours ago, AdministrationCenter21 said:

The entirety of Subspace from The Master Levels is bizarre beyond words, as well as the rest of Christen Klie's work. Absolutely love it though.

Ah, another Subspace fan! It's really kind of weird though. Garrison is his most conventional map in most aspects but even so, has that silly ledge falling bit to get the yellow key I believe. Then of course, there's that BFG that you can use on a slaughter-worthy amount of imps...for some reason.

American's weird cubic chandelier sculpture in the first secret room of Map22 always stood out to me as really odd and unlike anything in the rest of the iwads. It feels like a late 90s pwad flourish, or the kind of easter egg geometry you'd see in a Serious Sam game. Neat, though!

6 hours ago, Lone2401 said:

completely off topic, but what weapon/gameplay mod is that?

Brutal Doom 22. Plus High-res sprites and textures packs.

The bizarre mirroring secret in Monster Condo. Rather inexplicably, you're just taken to a carbon copy of the mancubi secret room. Nothing in the official levels had ever attempted to do something like this before, so it really jumps out at you the first time you come across it.

10 hours ago, Gifty said:

American's weird cubic chandelier sculpture in the first secret room of Map22 always stood out to me as really odd and unlike anything in the rest of the iwads. It feels like a late 90s pwad flourish, or the kind of easter egg geometry you'd see in a Serious Sam game. Neat, though!

American really liked his torch secrets, judging from both his Ultimate Doom levels and MAP05.

On 9/1/2024 at 9:47 AM, Stabbey said:

The mandatory shoot-switch in MAP 18 of Doom 2, "The Courtyard" - it looks like a standard press-switch, no switch like that has ever been shootable before, and you've never had to shoot anything to open it before.

To be honest, IF there were going to be more shootable switches from that point on - having the first one be the literal only possible thing to interact with in the starting room would have been a "smart" choice. After running out of options less than a minute in, the player shoots the switch rather than humping it, and has the eureka moment. Problem is.. it doesn't come back til map28, and even then it's not a lion/gargoyle head!

It feels like other (admittedly negligible) half-baked parts of the iwads, which I just put down to time crunch above all else, but yeah it's weird. Shootable switches are a great idea in theory and I'm glad pwads (and Sigil) made use of that otherwise largely ignored feature.
 

On 9/1/2024 at 9:55 AM, Gothic said:

Also the f10 symbol in the middle area:

It's a new age. Around 2010 if anyone mentioned this wall thing, FLOposting would commence, lol.. as in, the progressive auto insurance girl, lmao.

(I don't think it's meant to say "F10", it's just abstract hell writing)

On 9/1/2024 at 9:01 PM, Fernito said:

This room in Spawning Vats, while rather cool looking, always felt so pointless to me.

 

Good eye to notice how oddly empty this room is - it used to have a large half-circle computer panel in the middle of the room, which was removed before release - I guess maybe because it used the diagonal computer flats, which were IIRC never used elsewhere, so they just cut it outright.

http://toastytech.com/dooma/dbcontrol.gif

10 hours ago, Amaruq Wulfe said:

The bizarre mirroring secret in Monster Condo. Rather inexplicably, you're just taken to a carbon copy of the mancubi secret room. Nothing in the official levels had ever attempted to do something like this before, so it really jumps out at you the first time you come across it.

I always loooved this. It killed me numerous times, and technically it's a bullshit death, but.. that "😮 what the heck just happened?!" moment of shock was so entertaining to me.

47 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

It's a new age. Around 2010 if anyone mentioned this wall thing, FLOposting would commence, lol.. as in, the progressive auto insurance girl, lmao.

Sky texture exits. Like, are you falling from one level to the next? That’s what I like to think. Everything is stacked on top of everything else lol.

Although I guess they’re just wormholes showing a glimpse of the next map’s sky. :v

I really enjoyed the strong narrative connection of the Plutonia teleporter exits.

The entireity of Fortress of Mystery, the secret level of Episode 2 in the original DOOM. It just feels like something that was put together in an hour. Also, what was even the point of the keys? They only led to doors with switches that were only a few inches from each other.

Apparently, Sandy Petersen considers it his BEST Doom level design.