Punisher

Punisher is a single-level WAD for Doom II, designed by Dario Casali. Created in August 1995, it was billed by Casali as "the first EXTREME wad" with "MORE monsters than the ENTIRE Doom2 population". As such, some consider it the first slaughter map. This map was also the inspiration for his brother Milo's Plutonia map32.

While initially built around, Punisher extends or adds vast new areas, and large numbers of monsters, as well as the needed weapons and ammo needed to defeat them. The introduction screen shows a picture of the comic book character.

Overview
The only safe part of the level is the start. Once the player moves into the room with the two pillars and the pointed "V" stairs and starts fighting the monsters there, the rest of the enemies in the level will be alerted by the player's gunfire, as the map is an open one.

The level is known for places saturated with all one type of monster (either chaingunners, revenants, pain elementals, arachnotrons, mancubi, Hell knights, or barons of Hell. Consequently, this much reduces any hope of relying on monster infighting, though there is plentiful ammo. Only the boss demons, such as the arch-vile, spider mastermind, and cyberdemon appear singly.

In practice, however, the level quickly becomes repetitive, since the player frequently hides behind a wall, popping out to take shots at the monsters, rather than engaging them head on. Usually, there is not enough space and too many monsters for circle-strafing.

Secrets

 * 1) From the start, head north then east to reach a room with two medikits, three boxes of shotgun shells, and three energy cell packs. (sector 53)
 * 2) From #1, head west and north through the first door. You will reach a room with two switches - the south-eastern one opens up a door in the north-east leading to a room with a mancubus, three stimpacks, a megasphere, six boxes of rockets and five energy cell packs. (sector 37)
 * 3) The sector containing the switch which opens up the blue key counts as a secret and is impossible to miss. (sector 8)
 * 4) From #3, jump down to a grassy area which counts as a secret. (sector 17)

Bugs
The outer area with all of the mancubi around the pool, and the arachnotrons on the upper level, has a design flaw. The cyberdemon at the lower elevation cannot hit enemies above him if he is not far enough away, since his rockets will detonate at the edge of the upper level.

A cyberdemon and spiderdemon are placed within each others' collision boxes, and therefore they are stuck. Killing either will cause the other to be released.

Demo files
The release includes a separate demo file, PUNISHER.LMP, by the author. It requires Doom II v1.9 to be viewed and runs for 22:38.89 (47561 tics), completing the level on Ultra-Violence.

Current records
The records for the map at the Doomed Speed Demos Archive are:

Player spawns
This level contains eight spawn points:
 * 1) facing south-east. (thing 700)
 * 2) facing south. (thing 701)
 * 3) facing south-west. (thing 702)
 * 4) facing south-east. (thing 703)
 * 5) facing south-west. (thing 704)
 * 6) facing south-east. (thing 705)
 * 7) facing north-west. (thing 706)
 * 8) facing south. (thing 707)

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

Trivia

 * Back in 1995, the WAD was infamous for slowing down Intel 486 and Pentium CPUs that could otherwise run Doom well. It fell short of making the list of Top 10 Infamous WADs.