Exquisite Corpse

Exquisite Corpse is a single level PWAD for Doom II that was released on September 9, 2004. It was produced by Andrew Stine (Linguica) and consists of 12 1024x1024 unit regions joined together into a rectangle, with each of the 12 regions designed by a different author. The "gimmick" of the level is that after the first author, each successive author only got a tiny sliver of the directly adjoining regions to their own, and had to design their own region with a faint idea of what the regions next to theirs looked and played like.

The authors, as listed by region from left to right and top to bottom, are:
 * 1) Andrew Stine (Linguica)
 * 2) Rachel Schmitz (Negatronica)
 * 3) Darksoul
 * 4) Simon Broadhead (Volteface)
 * 5) Fiend
 * 6) Mike Watson (Cyb)
 * 7) _5hifty
 * 8) Chris Hopkins (chopkinsca)
 * 9) Maximillian Daley (Blackfish)
 * 10) Scrum
 * 11) Josh Simpson (EarthQuake)
 * 12) Boris Iwanski

Secrets

 * 1) Take the door to the east at the start, then immediately take the door to the south. Step on the lift in the southeast corner to lower into a room with an armor bonus, a stimpack, an ammo clip, and shotgun shells. (sector 103)
 * 2) Take the door to the east at the start, then immediately take the door to the north. Climb the steps and open the wall where the health bonuses are, then drop onto the ledge below. Shoot at the red torch to the south (an arrow of armor bonuses points to this torch) which will raise a square pyramid nearby. Using this pyramid, straferun northwest to the outer ledge to get a berserk pack. (sector 348)
 * 3) Head south from the start and into the small hall. Press on the wall immediately to the east before the first fork to find a blur artifact. (sector 339)
 * 4) Flip the switch north from where the yellow key is to open the bars near it, then head south past the bars. Press on the misaligned wall at the south end to get a super shotgun. (sector 179)
 * 5) Open the misaligned wall south of the yellow key to get a green armor. (sector 58)
 * 6) In the area with steps near the southeast end of the map (second to last square from the southeast corner), head to the top of the east steps and open the cracked wall to find a switch and a stimpack. (sector 1075)
 * 7) In the area with steps near the southeast end of the map (second to last square from the southeast corner), head to the top of the east steps and head west to a teleporter. If you pressed the switch in the previous secret, you will be able to head past the megaarmor to a blue key switch. Using that switch will lead to the megasphere beyond the bars. Note that the last step there counts as the secret, so you do not need the blue key to get this secret. (sector 1020)

Current records
The records for the map at the Doom Speed Demo Archive are:

The data was last verified in its entirety on July 31, 2022.

Player spawns
This level contains fifty-five spawn points:
 * 1) facing south-east. (thing 1)
 * 2) facing east. (thing 2)
 * 3) facing east. (thing 3)
 * 4) facing east. (thing 4)
 * 5) facing east. (thing 149)
 * 6) facing east. (thing 150)
 * 7) facing east. (thing 151)
 * 8) facing east. (thing 152)
 * 9) facing east. (thing 167)
 * 10) facing east. (thing 168)
 * 11) facing east. (thing 169)
 * 12) facing east. (thing 170)
 * 13) facing east. (thing 239)
 * 14) facing east. (thing 240)
 * 15) facing north. (thing 241)
 * 16) facing north. (thing 246)
 * 17) facing north. (thing 279)
 * 18) facing north. (thing 280)
 * 19) facing east. (thing 281)
 * 20) facing east. (thing 282)
 * 21) facing east. (thing 283)
 * 22) facing east. (thing 284)
 * 23) facing east. (thing 285)
 * 24) facing east. (thing 287)
 * 25) facing east. (thing 335)
 * 26) facing east. (thing 336)
 * 27) facing north. (thing 337)
 * 28) facing north. (thing 338)
 * 29) facing east. (thing 339)
 * 30) facing east. (thing 340)
 * 31) facing east. (thing 413)
 * 32) facing east. (thing 414)
 * 33) facing east. (thing 415)
 * 34) facing east. (thing 416)
 * 35) facing east. (thing 418)
 * 36) facing east. (thing 487)
 * 37) facing east. (thing 488)
 * 38) facing east. (thing 489)
 * 39) facing east. (thing 490)
 * 40) facing east. (thing 531)
 * 41) facing east. (thing 532)
 * 42) facing east. (thing 533)
 * 43) facing east. (thing 534)
 * 44) facing east. (thing 535)
 * 45) facing east. (thing 536)
 * 46) facing east. (thing 636)
 * 47) facing east. (thing 637)
 * 48) facing east. (thing 638)
 * 49) facing east. (thing 639)
 * 50) facing east. (thing 732)
 * 51) facing east. (thing 733)
 * 52) facing east. (thing 734)
 * 53) facing east. (thing 735)
 * 54) facing east. (thing 736)
 * 55) facing east. (thing 738)

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

Inspiration and development
Exquisite Corpse draws its name from an surrealist where players would write sentences by having each person add a new word to the sentence without being able to see the words that came before. In September 2004, Linguica created a Doomworld forums thread entitled seeking to create a PWAD following the same principle. He quickly recruited 11 level designers and after creating the first 1024x1024 region, sent the authors for the 2 adjacent regions 64x1024 slivers of his own region for them to connect their own regions to. Then he sent slivers of those regions to the next authors, and so forth.

To make sure the level was at least somewhat playable, Linguica also gave each contributor a general sense of the player's expected weapon loadout, and tasked certain contributors to add colored keys or colored key doors in turn.

Trivia
Exquisite Corpse is credited as the "main influence" in the 2005 megawad Congestion 1024, and can thus be argued to be the originator of the restricted-space genre of maps, also found in Claustrophobia 1024, Congestion 64, MAYhem 2048, 2048 Unleashed, and others.