E2M4: Mental Ward (Doom the Way id Did)

E2M4: Mental Ward is the fourth map of The Shores of Hell in Doom the Way id Did. It was designed by Jacob Zuchowski (ellmo) in the style of Tom Hall and Sandy Petersen, and hosts the same eerie atmosphere as the original E2M4. The par time defined in the DEHACKED lump is 3:00.

Essentials
Climb the stairs to your left. The blue torch here indicates a fork where you can head left or go straight. Go straight at the fork to a big hall with another fork. Going left will not lead you anywhere without a key so go right through the large hall, going around the bend overlooking the starting point. When you go behind the square metal column, you will come across three doors and a switch. The north door can be opened directly, leading to a hall with monsters and a couple of colored key doors. Ignore this path for now and hit the switch to open the door directly behind you (the other door cannot be opened yet). In this room is a nukage pool. Take the path outlined by green torches to a switch and a teleporter. Before you take the teleporter, hit the switch. The switch you pressed raises some stairs though, so make sure you climb those, open the next door, and grab the yellow key. Grabbing it drops you right outside back to where the three doors are. Now take the north door and find the yellow door at the end of the hall. Alternatively, you can go down the end of the large hall to the two key doors instead, the yellow door will be on your left if you choose that route.

Whichever path you chose, get into the middle hallway with the blinking lights. Going north to where the baron of Hell is, turn right and follow the stairs upwards. You will find a switch, press it and go back and the door should be open. When you enter the next room, you will trigger the lift on your right to move up and down. Ride it up, and go right and down to get a red skull key. Exit through the yellow doors on the right, and then head straight across to the red doors to reach the next area. There is another set of red doors in the big hall on the right wall if you want to pick those. Either way, the red door should take you to another large hall. Go to the north end of the hall which has a lift. You need to press the right lion switch here (the one that is lit) to lower the lift. When you do that, head right and then down the stairs all the way to the room with the table. Flipping the switch here opens up a wall of spectres to your southeast, but also a wall in the previous hall allowing you to get a blue skull key in the blood. With this key, backtrack all the way to the blue door, which is in the hallway taken by the north door in the small area with three doors and a switch. Follow this winding hallway to the exit.

Other points of interest
To get the armor you saw at the starting point, head left through the passage and when you reach the next room a lift makes a sound. Go back to the blue torch quickly and drop down to obtain the armor. You can also jump on the crate for a box of shells and go west of the armor to find a rocket.

At the fork, if you go left and take the door, you will find a room with two shotgun guys, some health bonuses, and a shotgun.

If you take the path outlined by green torches to the teleporter, you will find a switch before the teleporter. This switch is supposed to raise the stairs in the subsequent area you teleport into via the nearby teleporter. If you choose not to press the switch and go in the teleporter first, you can still raise the stairs to reach the yellow key. Take the teleporter and go to where the stairs are supposed to be made. Just to the left of where the first step would be, press on the brown wall and the stairs will be raised.

On the other side of the teleporter close to where the yellow key is, there are some supply rooms if you traverse the water, one of which contains a chaingun.

Head into the hallway with blinking lights beyond the yellow key doors. On the first left in the hallway is a small aside with a few side rooms containing lost souls in them. There are a few supplies if you want them, including a berserk pack.

In the room just before the lift that leads to the red key, if you climb the stairs there, you will find a plasma gun.

Secrets

 * 1) Take either of the yellow key doors and head into the hall with the blinking lights as the floor. You might notice that the ways to this hall are marked by red lights. To get this secret, first you must cross through the left passage that has red lights. Now return to the gray hallway that has a yellow door and a blue door. Open the wall that has an arrow pointing downward (it is not the one that has blue lights around it). The floor goes up and down here, ride it up and move through the opening to get a few health and armor bonuses. (sector 49)
 * 2) When you grab the red skull key, drop down into the hallway and a lift will lower nearby. This is the lift that held the megaarmor you saw near the spiral staircase to the east. Pick it up before it rises. (sector 214)
 * 3) If you go through the red light passage on the right of the blinking hall, quickly go out the yellow door and head southward. If you are fast enough, you can make it onto the dark gray ledge that had imps on it. When it rises, you may see a switch to the southeast. Shoot it and it will open a window on the ground floor overlooking the starting point. This window is close to the ledge that has the soul sphere on it, and as a result of shooting the switch, you can jump to it. (sector 33) An alternative and easier way to reach the dark gray platform is to reach Secret #5 first. Press on the wall that leads to Secret #5 to lower it as a lift, but go back through the nearby red door and you will be able to access the platform sooner.
 * 4) In Secret #3, you might notice the wall behind the soul sphere has faces on it and is slightly open. Open the wall to collect a rocket launcher, a rocket, and some ammo clips. (sector 109)
 * 5) Go through the red door on the southern end of the big hall. Take the steps up and move to the right until you find a baron of Hell. There is a side area to the left of him with a computer panel. To the right of the panel, you will see that the vines are brown instead of green. Press the wall here to lower it as a lift and get a chainsaw and some armor bonuses. (sector 330)
 * 6) To the north of the blue key room you will find a lift with two lion switches. Press on the one that is lit and it will lower the lift. Press on the one that is not lit and it will lower the secret which is just to the left of the lift. To get the secret, you must press the lit switch, and then the non-lit switch, then quickly ride the lift up and run left to get the secret before it rises. You will find a rocket, a box of shells, and a computer area map. (sector 297)

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

The data was last verified in its entirety on April 3, 2022.

Player spawns
This level contains eight spawn points:
 * 1) facing west. (thing 319)
 * 2) facing east. (thing 320)
 * 3) facing south-east. (thing 331)
 * 4) facing south. (thing 332)
 * 5) facing south. (thing 333)
 * 6) facing north. (thing 339)
 * 7) facing south-east. (thing 340)
 * 8) facing south. (thing 341)

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