MAP24: The Mucus Flow (Community Chest 2)

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Community Chest 2 maps 21-30

01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
(21 - 30)
Secret maps: 31 32

This level occupies the map slot MAP24. For other maps which occupy this slot, see Category:MAP24.

MAP24: The Mucus Flow is the twenty-fourth map of Community Chest 2. It was designed by Bernard De Windt (B.P.R.D), and uses a music track composed by him. It is notorious as the hardest level in the megawad, and is also only barely playable in Boom as the result of a design flaw (see Bugs). There is a fixed version that corrects all major issues and is available for download on the Doom Speed Demo Archive page for the PWAD.

The level is set in a rocky outdoor area, with a river of green mucus flowing through it, and within a techbase flooded by the substance. There is no health or ammo to be found on the way, other than within small depots scattered throughout the level, most of which require a well-guarded key to access.

The Mucus Flow was featured in Doomworld's Top 100 Most Memorable Maps, placing 3rd. Its music track was also included in Doomworld's Doot Eternal music feature for Doom's 30th anniversary.

Walkthrough[edit]

Map of The Mucus Flow
Letters in italics refer to marked spots on the map. Sector, thing, and linedef numbers in boldface are secrets which count toward the end-of-level tally.

Essentials[edit]

The large shack behind your starting point is of vital importance, as supplies are extremely scarce in this level bar this one shack. Whenever you need health or ammo, you will need to come back here. If you went for the valley that houses the red key, then you need to be wary of a monster in this shack (an arch-vile on Ultra-Violence, for example) The switches on the eastern side house weapons, and three of them are colored key switches, so you need to hunt for keys to get them. In a technical sense, you will not need any keys if all you want to do is get through the level, but they are vital if you wish to survive through to the end. From the start, go west, through the building and keep going west through the valley. Ignore the tower guard zombies, as they will respawn and you will not have enough ammo to kill all of them. Pass through until you hit a fork, you will have a few options at this point:

To get the red key, head right and then left at the next fork, and then go through the next valley. There is a health shack here if you need it. Be wary about your health and ammo, and watch out because some enemies may come through the slime falls. When you reach a large slimefall which seems to be a dead end, look for where the rock juts out and you will see part of the slime fall is misaligned. This is an opening so you can continue through the valley. Keep climbing and you will eventually find the key.

If you are heading for the blue key, head right at the fork and then right again, following the path. You will enter an area with a cage to your right and nukage on the floor. There is an opening through the slimefall where you can reach the lift. Enter through to the big area and climb onto the little crates into the valley here to get the key. Climb the stairs to get back out.

If you are heading for the yellow key, head left at the fork. Take either path and hit the switch to reveal an area behind you with a fountain. Be extra careful here, as chaingunner closets will appear in the walls after you move over some linedef, and some demons will come from behind. The switch near the door opens it into the next hallway. Take the first door on your left. Here there are some areas where if you cross the blue lines, imps will teleport. The yellow key has a lot of monster teleports, some of them are mancubi.

If you are just getting out, take the yellow key path, but keep going down the long hallway, through the next room into the next valley. You will have to traverse this long valley until a long lift, then continue through the upper reaches of the valley. There is a health shack at the bottom of the valley, and an ammo shack (guarded by revenants) a bit past the elevator. You need the red and the yellow keys, respectively, to open them. Crossing the blue line near the pads will cause revenants to teleport in. You will reach what eventually is another dead end, but go through the slimefall to find another switch here. Pressing it floods the valley with nukage. Now go back all the way to the entrance of this valley until you find an opening close to where the health shack was (also take note that the health will be openly available if you have not picked it up yet. Go through this winding road and exit by approaching the column with the stars on it.

Other points of interest[edit]

Secrets[edit]

Official[edit]

  1. At the bottom of the stairway at the south of the silver building, southeast of the lift, one of the nukage falls on the south wall can be walked through. Do so to find stairs leading to two sets of shells and three stimpacks. (sector 1287)
  2. Near the doorway at the southeast of the silver building, look toward the east wall to find an arrangement of small gems in the walls, accompanied by a larger one. One of the small gems is slightly larger than the others. Press on it to open a door nearby. Follow the path beyond the door until you find a switch. Press the switch to activate the elevator, which will take you to eight stimpacks, five medikits, two boxes of ammo, two boxes of shells, a blur artifact, a berserk pack, and a computer map, all gathered around a giant nose with nukage flowing from its nostrils. (sector 1556) Behind the nose is a teleporter, which you take you back to the previous room. You can only enter this secret once.
  3. In the room before the room where the yellow key is found, the monster teleporters inside, unlike the ones in the other two rooms, are connected directly to the eastern wall. Press on the portion of that wall south of the wire to find a teleporter. Use it, and you will be taken a cliff high above the blue key area, where you can jump to a brown structure containing a soul sphere. (sector 384)
  4. In the hallway north of the yellow key area, the windows are bordered by small gems in the wall. The westernmost one is slightly larger than the others. Press under it to access the nukage-filled area beyond. (sector 884) At the east side of this area, you can find seven stimpacks. This secret is broken for some players due to the pass use bug described in the Bugs section.
  5. Inside secret #4, the southwest side of the northwest nukage fall can be walked through. Climb over there, and do so to find a corridor leading to a switch. (sector 1971) Upon flipping the switch, all of the enemies to be teleported into the towers near the beginning of the level (who account for 517 of the map's monsters on all skill levels) will be killed, allowing you to take out their previous occupants without having another teleport in their place. This secret suffers from the same bug as secret #4.
  6. In the unfixed version of the map, three crates in secret #5 are each marked as secret, but are impossible to trigger apart from using the noclip cheat, as there is no way to climb onto them. (sector 1973)
  7. See secret #6. (sector 1974)
  8. See secret #6. (sector 1975)

Non-official[edit]

On the red key path, on the far east end of the map is a green waterfall with a partial invisibility inside it.

Bugs[edit]

The map is only barely playable outside of ZDoom-family ports, or other ports that can pass use on all linedefs, due to use-blocking linedefs being placed in front of doors and switches without the pass use flag applied. Users of PrBoom+ can activate "Use passes thru all special lines" to solve this problem. The main issues this causes are corrected in the fixed version:

  • Secret #4 (and therefore secret #5) are unreachable due to scrolling texture linedefs blocking use on the door.
  • The button required to progress to the outside area in the northwest (linedef 9094) is almost totally unusable. It is possible to press it by parkouring from the back of a bench using SR40 towards the button, pressing it while speeding over the use-blocking linedefs.

Some minor issues caused by it are not corrected in the fixed version:

  • The button to open the building with silver interiors (linedef 3321) has use-blocking linedefs around it and must be approached closer than is normally required for it to be pressable.
  • The first button next to a teleporter on the yellow key path (linedef 7547) is blocked by a scrolling texture wire until it is fully stepped over.
  • A scrolling texture wire also blocks use of the secret #3 door from one side.

On skill 2 or lower, the landing spot for the teleporter in secret #2 does not exist, making the secret impossible to leave. This was corrected in the fixed version.

The tops of the crates in secret #5 are unreachable secret sectors. The secret sector status was removed from them in the fixed version, bringing the secret count down to 5.

The closed door near the chainsaw has a switch (linedef 1912) on this side with a wrong sector tag, making it not do anything. There is a working switch on the other side that partially opens the door and shows that it is stuck. It was tagged properly in the fixed version.

There are places with wrong sky textures (sectors 1579, 924, 1298, 1902, 1885, and 1715), appearing similar to flat bleeds. They are given the proper textures in the fixed version.

The map has complex scenery, which has resulted in some minor visual bugs being overlooked. The fixed version corrects an instance of textures scrolling in the wrong direction (linedefs 1816, 1818, 2717), but there are other subtle bugs:

  • The pavement that connects the facility to the northwest valley has a couple of flat bleeds (linedefs 7624, 11301) due to missing textures.
  • The green waterfall behind the health shack in the northwest valley terminates in flat bleeds (linedefs 13488, 13487) due to missing textures.
  • A rocky mountainside (linedef 11990) in the northwest valley is a scrolling texture.
  • To be consistent with the rest of the large building, the ceiling lights have their segments scroll in opposite directions, but some (sectors 1091, 716, and those in the south forked hallway) do not.
  • There is a slightly raised ceiling above the southeast pillbox (sector 438) which displays missing textures.
  • The pillboxes in the circular hallway have a lot of texture issues (linedefs 3211, 3231 2962, 2887, 2623).

Demo files[edit]

Areas / screenshots[edit]

  • The start

  • Down from the start

  • Inside the first building

  • The pillars

  • The end of this pillar zone

  • The gems inside

  • The secret stronghold

  • Use the source, Flynn

  • The way to the red key

  • The red key

  • The fountain of…

  • Another secret

  • The horde

  • Another trap

  • The end

  • Cc2map24.png

Speedrunning[edit]

Routes and tricks[edit]

Current records[edit]

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

Run Time Player Date File Notes
UV speed 1:28.89 Maribo 2021-12-16 c224p128.zip Cross-listed from Pacifist
Plays back with cc2_m24f.wad
NM speed
UV max 17:14.89 Drew DeVore (stx-Vile) 2021-12-06 c224m1714.zip Plays back with cc2_m24f.wad
NM 100S
UV -fast
UV -respawn
UV Tyson 1:41:41.17 akolai 2022-06-20 c224t14141.zip Plays back with cc2_m24f.wad
UV pacifist 1:28.89 Maribo 2021-12-16 c224p128.zip Plays back with cc2_m24f.wad
NoMo 1:05.86 Meowgi 2021-10-11 c224o105.zip Plays back with cc2_m24f.wad
NoMo 100S 2:37.77 Doomdaniel95 2016-07-12 c224os237.zip Plays back with cc2_m24f.wad

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

Deathmatch[edit]

Player spawns[edit]

This level contains four spawn points:

  1. facing west. (thing 2211)
  2. facing west. (thing 2212)
  3. facing north. (thing 2213)
  4. facing east. (thing 2214)

Statistics[edit]

Map data[edit]

Things 2515
Vertices 16124*
Linedefs 14057
Sidedefs 24616
Sectors 1979
* The vertex count without the effect of node building is 12235.

Things[edit]

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

Technical information[edit]

Inspiration and development[edit]

Trivia[edit]

See also[edit]

Sources[edit]

External links[edit]

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