MAP10: The Bleeding (Doom 64)

MAP10: The Bleeding is the tenth level of Doom 64, designed by Danny Lewis. The level is set in a hellish volcanic outpost guarded by many imps, spectres and mancubi. The level itself consists of lots of switch flipping in order to open doors and reveal new areas to eventually find the exit. It uses the music track "Dark Echo".

Essentials
You start off in a round space confined by a thick stone wall with a square pillar in the middle and an open ceiling. The are two open spaces that are closed off by large stone columns positioned at opposite ends and two doors adjacent of them. Opening either door will open the opposite one automatically. Kill the imps lurking beyond each door. Upon collecting the energy cell packs, a hoard of pinkies will appear in the round space and one of the sets of stone columns will retract into the ground to give access to the next portion of the map. Killing all the pinkies causes their corpses to disappear, then you can advance.

Outside of the round space, there is a door placed inline with the border walls of the map with a chaingun on the ground directly in front of it. This door leads into a bunker-like pavilion. Beyond this door is a room with several nightmare imps in linear formation which can be easily dispatched with the super shotgun, and on each side of the room up some stone steps are switches which open accesses to the outside walks of the pavilion. Take caution as the outside walks are occupied by a pair of Hell knights each. After dispatching them, the take the left stairs to a switch on the outside wall which when activated, will trigger the appearance of several pinkies, imps, and a squadron of six mancubi on each end of the grassy path that surrounds the main square of the map. This also causes the rest of the columns to retract, granting the player access to the rest of the map, and it causes the square column in the round space to retract and reveal a soulsphere.

On the other end of the map from the pavilion is a large, temple-like keep. Upon entering the keep, a lost soul will appear and attack. Shoot it, then activate the switch on the left. This opens up corridors on each side which are infested with lost souls and lined with health and armor bonuses. After killing all the lost souls, head through the opposite corridor that had the health bonuses and go through the path that branches off from it. You will come across a switch on the right wall which causes the small columns across from it to lower and grant access to the yellow skull key. Collect the key and continue heading down the path until you come across a corridor where several spectres are lurking, quite difficult to see in the dimly lit surroundings. Kill them and proceed to the yellow door.

Beyond the yellow door is a large cavern-like space with a shallow stream and a pack of more spectres. Additionally, directly across from the yellow door in a niche on the far stone wall sits the first BFG9000 to be found in the game. However, the step that allows the player to reach it is raised a little too high at the moment. Continue to go up the steps which the stream is flowing down, and drop down into an enclosure and take out the two barons that appear. Interact with the switch and go through the teleporter, that will take you back before the jump into the enclosure. Turn around and head back down the steps. To the left of where the BFG sits is a short path that leads to a switch that pops up from the ground. Activating this switch will cause the exit switches to appear back in the starting room.

Exit the keep, and be prepared to face an onslaught of several imps, pinkies, and mancubi waiting outside of the keep. Eliminate every opposition waiting outside and return to the starting room, where several switches have risen out of the ground. Hit any of the exit switches available to end the map.

Secrets

 * 1) From the start of the map, turn right, open the large door and kill the imps waiting inside. Turn left to a couple boxes of rockets to trigger a small cache open containing a berserk pack (thing 37), situated behind the super shotgun in the same room.
 * 2) The super shotgun sitting before the niche itself counts as a secret. (thing 38)
 * 3) Repeat the same process in Secret #1 in the opposite room. This time, the niche contains a plasma rifle. (thing 4)
 * 4) In the pavilion with nightmare imps, moving into and out of the rectangular alcove in the east lowers a niche with a megaarmor. (thing 8)
 * 5) When up in the niche of Secret #4, use the unmarked northwest panel to lower the northeast one, which holds a rocket launcher. (thing 185)
 * 6) After killing the lone lost soul guarding a switch, activate the switch to lower the stairs on both sides. Take the left flight of stairs first to a room with more lost souls and several armor bonuses on the ground. Take an immediate turn to the left and interact with the face to reveal a niche containing an energy cell pack inside. (thing 53)
 * 7) To obtain the BFG9000, the ledge it is on must be lowered. Continue going up the water path on the right and turn right into the first face decoration you see. This face is the same as in Secret #6, however the face is animated and would often snarl at the player with red eyes. Interacting with the face would lower the ledge even though no switch activation sound or the lowering of the niche is heard. Turn around and grab the BFG9000 (thing 46) and defeat the mancubi that spawn afterwards.

Routes and tricks
When confronting the final onslaught of monsters before exiting the map, a few shots from the BFG will reduce their numbers greatly, then the rest can be picked off with a lesser tier weapon to conserve energy ammo since the BFG is voracious with energy consumption, and energy ammunition is fairly uncommon in the game.

Things
This level contains the following numbers of things per skill level: