SQUARES

From DoomWiki.org

SQUARES
One room is full of arachnotrons.One room is full of arachnotrons.
Author Costa Lappas
Port Vanilla Doom
IWAD Doom II
Year 1995
Link Doomworld/idgames
This level occupies the map slot MAP01. For other maps which occupy this slot, see Category:MAP01.

SQUARES is a single-level PWAD for Doom II by Costa Lappas, released in March 1995. It was significant for having a very high monster count at this early stage of the Doom modding scene. Some consider it the first slaughter map.[1]

Walkthrough[edit]

WalkthroughUnmarked
Map of SQUARES
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.

Overview[edit]

In 1995 this would have been considered a concept map to some degree, back before editors had polygon templates and drag-and-drop copypasting. It consists of sixteen square rooms tessellated around a larger central square. Each corner room contains a megasphere, all hitscan weapons, shells, and bullets. At each of the four compass directions lies a heavy weapon on a carpet of ammo, but attached to a trap unleashing formations of shotgun guys, barons, and pain elementals, with arch-viles capering in a cage behind. The trap will also open a broad window into the central chamber (H), exposing you to spiderdemon fire. Interposing rooms are packed with a single type of monster apiece (in all, fourteen of Doom II's twenty species are represented). Each group's population increases with skill level.

There are no health pickups apart from the megaspheres. Once you have the red key, however, the worst is over (bosses and arch-viles notwithstanding) because everyone else can be slain from behind locked doors or by corner-hiding if needed.

Essentials[edit]

Arm yourself at the start point (A). Proceed clockwise through the squares to a group of Wolfenstein SS (B), where the red key is hidden behind the south wall. Along the way you will encounter, in order: demons, a plasma gun (with trap as above), arachnotrons, a supply room as above, revenants, a rocket launcher (with trap as above), heavy weapon dudes, and another supply room.

Proceed west through a red door (C), where you will find a BFG9000. Picking it up triggers the window and reveals the blue key (D), which is itself trapped as above (lost souls replace shotgun guys).

Westward through another red door is a room of arch-viles (E); the yellow key is hidden behind its south wall. You can now reach the exit in the very center of the map, first by passing through one of eight blue doors in the single-monster rooms (F), then opening the black-paneled central structure which is a yellow door. The latter action releases a wave of cyberdemons, several invulnerability and partial invisibility powerups, and four sniper monsters atop columns (imps on skill levels 1 and 2, heavy weapon dudes on skill 3, arch-viles on skill 4 and 5). Pressing any skull switch on the red pillar (G) ends the level.

Other points of interest[edit]

You can continue around clockwise back toward the start room, which brings you consecutively to a fourth supply room, mancubi, another rocket launcher room, and imps.

Due to the lost soul limit, pain elementals collectively can attack only a few times on skill 3, and not at all on skill 4 or 5, until the blue key trap is cleared.

Cyberdemon rockets do not clear the windowsills unless fired from the opposite side of the chamber. When they awaken, grab an invulnerability and either backtrack to a blue door or arch-vile jump through a window. You can then attack without retaliation (assuming the spiderdemons are all dead and you stand at least 1024 units from the nearest sniper).

Secrets[edit]

  1. The door to the red key alcove counts as a secret. (sector 110)
  2. The door to the yellow key alcove counts as a secret. (sector 112)

Bugs[edit]

  • Vanilla Doom's savegame size limit is exceeded on skill 4 and 5. Attempting to save will halt the application.
  • Ghost monsters are a common occurrence due to the frequent battles near doorways, unless the room full of arch-viles is carefully contained. The author acknowledges this in the readme and recommends detonating rockets against walls to kill the ghosts.

Demo files[edit]

Areas / screenshots[edit]

  • Starting point

  • A super shotgun in the first room

  • A bigger gun will have immediate practical application

  • Hit the exit switch, or go for a few more kills?

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 0:57.91 Bdubzzz 2022-07-02 1squ-057.zip
NM speed [notes 1]
UV max 4:09.80 TimeOfDeath 2009-01-07 1squ-409.zip
NM 100S 1:20.66 TimeOfDeath 2009-01-10 1squn120.zip
UV -fast 4:55.46 TimeOfDeath 2009-01-11 1squf455.zip
UV -respawn
UV Tyson
UV pacifist
NoMo 100S 0:40.06 Yugo 2026-01-11 1squo4006.zip

The data was last verified in its entirety on January 30, 2026.

Notes[edit]

  1. ↑ Because both secrets are required to complete the level, NM speed and NM100S are nominally equivalent. A distinct NM speed recording could be created via the noclip bug or similar exploit causing one or both secrets not to register. Per Compet-n practice under Adam Hegyi, if a valid demo were submitted using such a trick, the NM speed category would be maintained going forward.

Deathmatch[edit]

Player spawns[edit]

This level contains four spawn points:

  1. facing south-east. (thing 1)
  2. facing south-west. (thing 3)
  3. facing north-west. (thing 5)
  4. facing north-east. (thing 7)

Statistics[edit]

Map data[edit]

Things 1328
Vertices 448*
Linedefs 544
Sidedefs 760
Sectors 133

* The vertex count without the effect of node building is 404.

Things[edit]

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

Technical information[edit]

This mod is stored in the file 1SQUARES.WAD, which is 89,234 bytes in size. It contains 11 entries and has the following hashes:

Hash type Hash code
MD5 74a82fb17f3cf88db05a3aa825cb74c8
SHA-1 59752494BCDB2B370D047BAFACB32F0F529BD581
CRC-32 39bea0f4

Trivia[edit]

  • SQUARES was later used as the basis for the much larger Deus Vult map.

External links[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ↑ ONEMANDOOM: WAD Reviews (10 November 2017). "Squares (1SQUARES.WAD)." Retrieved 2 December 2021.
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