MAP15: Spook House (1 Monster)

MAP15: Spook House is the fifteenth map of 1 Monster. It was designed by "sausage" and Robert Eckhardt (Ichor), and uses the music track "Double, Double, Toil and Trouble" from Blood.

Like all maps in the megawad, the map features only one type of monster, in this case the spectre. It is set in a Gothic horror-styled mansion (with liberal use of textures from the ), full of dark secrets and ambushes by the invisible beasts. The map contains a secret exit to MAP31: Castle Dorkenstein.

Strategy
"Spook House" is a difficult map, as ammo is scarce, health even more so, and most of the level is dark and gray, making the monsters hard to see. It is important that the player moves carefully and avoids getting cornered, preferrably retreating to previous locations to take out the crowds more safely. For the first half of the map, an useful trick in tense situations is to retreat to the front porch where the player begins the level; the spectres cannot leave through the front door, allowing the player to shoot or punch them with impunity.

All of the armor bonuses and health bonuses on the map are actually stacks of several of the items on top of each other.

Walkthrough
Enter the house and head left, to the library area. Press the switch to the south-west to open two doorways which lead to a staircase. Head upstairs. In the dark pit, press the switch to lower the barriers blocking your way, then head forward and pick up the red key. Return to the house's main hall and open the red door.

Enter the dining room and head to the outside area. Press the switch here to open a door to the east of the small hallway. Go there and descend downstairs to find the yellow key. Head back to the red door; there is a yellow key door nearby. Open it and head forward through another door, then descend down into the dark caverns. Enter the opening to the north and press the switch here to open the bars that block a passage to the west of the cellar. Head in there.

Press the switch to the northwest of the laboratory. This will raise the bars that block the way into a small room in the middle of the area, where you will find the blue key. Pick it up, leave the laboratory and head out of the cellar, back up the stairs where the blue key door is.

Enter the blue door. Wait for the floor to lower and you will see the passage to the exit, which you can enter once the bars lower completely.

Other points of interest
In the area beyond the red door, there is a study where you can find a chaingun, two clips, 4 shotgun shells and four (Easy), five (Medium) or seven (Hard) health bonuses.

A teleporter just before the exit portal leads back to the earlier part of the level.

Official

 * 1) In the hallway immediately beyond the house's front door is a bookshelf. Open it to find one (Easy) or two (Medium and Hard) sets of 4 shotgun shells, as well as a spectre.
 * 2) In the library area, one of the bookshelves set inside a wall niche to the northwest is flashing. Open the bookshelf to find 15 (Easy), 18 (Medium) or 20 (Hard) health bonuses.
 * 3) When you enter the balcony from the dining room, a skull switch is temporarily revealed in the study behind you. Climb onto the dining room table and shoot the skull in order to open a wall in the small hallway; inside is a backpack.
 * 4) In the wine cellar, a shelf on one of the walls is cracked and broken. Open this wall to find two clips, two sets of 4 shotgun shells, 20 (Easy), 25 (Medium) or 30 (Hard) armor bonuses, and two spectres.
 * 5) In the laboratory's northwest room, one of the metal cabinets is covered in blood. Open it to find 20 (Easy), 25 (Medium) or 30 (Hard) health bonuses.
 * 6) In the blue key room, one of the control panels to the north is a switch. Press it, then head into the area west of the labs (see "Non-official", below) and open the northern furnace. A passage has opened inside; passing through the opening triggers the secret. If you will continue down into the caverns, you will find yourself in a chamber with several stone columns. There, pressing the switch to the northwest lowers the column in the middle of the room, eventually giving you access to a portal which leads to the secret level, MAP31: Castle Dorkenstein.

Non-official
In the laboratory, in the small room with the blue key, there is a brighter control panel on the west side. Press it to open a door to the southwest of the lab. Inside you will find three clips, 4 shotgun shells, a stimpack, three (Easy), four (Medium) or five (Hard) health bonuses, and the same number of armor bonuses. In the northern room, press the switch on the wall to open the furnace, inside of which is a backpack.

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

Misc. demos
This information was last verified in its entirety on September 19, 2014.

Inspiration and development
The map was originally left unfinished; the majority of it by Eckhardt. About the only part of the map left intact from sausage's original work was the front hall.