MAP07: Dead Simple (Doom II)

MAP07: Dead Simple is the seventh map of Doom II. It was designed by American McGee and Sandy Petersen (though he disputes this), uses the music track "Shawn's Got The Shotgun" and introduces two new enemies, the mancubus and the arachnotron. The par time is 2:00.

Essentials
Press the switch to lower the walls. Kill the two, four or seven mancubi and more walls will lower, revealing arachnotrons. Kill them all and you will be able to end the level by pressing the eye switch in the middle of the map. Use the blur spheres to avoid the monsters. Before you exit, hit the switches in this room and the platforms the mancubi were on will lower, revealing health and weapons. Also, get the ammo and health from where the arachnotrons came. Now go back to the center of the map and exit.

Official

 * 1) The only secret in this level is the area surrounding the exit switch. (sector 1) Therefore, it is impossible to exit the level without triggering the secret, unless you use the alternative exit switch described below or rocket jump to it without raising the step, as happens in UV speed demo on this level by Marijo "Sedlo" Sedlic (see below).

Non-official

 * 1) The northwest corner of the map has a secret alcove, housing a BFG9000 and an energy cell pack, along with another exit switch. In single player or coop, it is inaccessible; it is only opened when a deathmatch player spawns in that location. This is usually discovered when a player uses the  or  cheat codes. If a player enters the region through noclip cheat, it can be disabled safely because the wall can be opened from inside.

Bugs
If the last two arachnotrons die at the same time, it may cause the stair step surrounding the exit in the center to rise twice, making the exit in the center become seemingly inaccessible. One can still access the exit by running across from the lowered northwest or northeast platforms. The texture on the steps is only 16 pixels tall, so raising it twice will induce the tutti-frutti effect on the lower texture.

If this level is played on Nightmare! difficulty or with the Parameter parameter set, the arachnotrons that endlessly respawn may cause the same behaviour as when two arachnotrons die at the same time.

Item bumps
Eight different power ups and ammo items can be bumped when the platforms haven't been lowered. This includes a megasphere and a plasma gun. Using this allows one to quickly pick up an item as the lowering switch is always far away, making it likely an opponent will pick up the item instead.

Routes and tricks
Because the normal route through the map involves killing all of the monsters on the level, it was for long believed that a UV pacifist run of this map was impossible. However, Drew DeVore (stx-Vile) proved this wrong in 2005 by releasing a demonstrating that it is possible to complete the level if the player propels himself to the exit switch with a rocket launcher.

It has also been found that the exit trigger may be reached without the auxiliary step. To do this, the player has to stand accurately at the middle of the side of the central platform.

Current Compet-n records
The Compet-n records for the map are:

The data was last verified in its entirety on July 5, 2020.


 * 1) Normally, the level is finished with 100% secrets, so a separate category from NM speed would be redundant. All secrets are found unless the noclip bug occurs or the map is completed by using a rocket jump without touching the exit sector's floor.

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

The data was last verified in its entirety on August 26, 2022.

Player spawns
This level contains six spawn points:
 * 1) facing south. (thing 49)
 * 2) facing south. (thing 50)
 * 3) facing north. (thing 51)
 * 4) facing north. (thing 52)
 * 5) facing west. (thing 53)
 * 6) facing east. (thing 86)

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

Trivia

 * The alcove in the northwest corner contains a BFG9000, a bulk cell and an additional exit switch (as the central exit is usually not reachable when using Parameter on deathmatch mode). However, this alcove is accessible only in deathmatch mode, after a player spawns inside and opens the door.
 * The backpack at the start of the level is actually ten backpacks placed on top of each other. Picking "it" up will thus give the player a very large amount of ammo.
 * "Dead Simple" is the first official map in the Doom series whose name is not a noun or a noun phrase.
 * , which can be translated loosely as "The Grass of Death", presumably a reference to the predominant floor texture.
 * Sandy Petersen claims he did not make any version of this map, and attributes its genesis entirely to American McGee.