MAP27: Mount Pain (TNT: Evilution)

MAP27: Mount Pain is the twenty-seventh map of TNT: Evilution. It was designed by Drake O'Brien and uses the music track "Into the Beast's Belly".

Layout
This map has the highest monsters count of all the maps in the game. Even if this monsters count doesn't include any cyberdemon, spider mastermind, baron of hell or (at least on the lower difficulties) arch-viles, this level is still very hard. This is most likely because of some huge groups of enemies, of their placement and of the size of the map. The map is pretty big, but the count of the health that it gives is extremely poor: no megasphere, no supercharge, only 17 health bonuses (some of which are in a secret area) and a handful of stimpacks and med kits.



The start
Immediately kill all the gunners that surround you in the wide open starting area. Once you've done this, find a corridor with a box of bullets at the bottom (if you want to grab it, beware an imps' trap): in this corridor you'll find three more hallways. The first one will lead you to a "dead end" (actually there is a secret wall). The second and third one will lead you respectively to a passage way with many gunners and imps which is technically avoidable and to an underground area which contains the red key. If you choose the avoidable passage way, beware the chaingunners (expecially the ones behind two fake walls), the imps, some enemies that will teleport and the final room.

The winding underground tunnels and the red key's trap
Follow the stairs in the third hallway in the corridor until you get to a dark tunnel with imps, barrels and damaging slime. Kill the imps, then grab a radiation suit. Find a box of shells: when you grab it, a wall will open behind you; the area inside is technically avoidable (unless you want to get 100% kills and items), since eventually you'll start to walk down a long series of winding tunnels of damaging floor, and you can start to explore the tunnels from the start of the underground. In the tunnels you'll come across several imps, a pair of suits, two "pit-stop" rooms and eventually a wall with the words "disaster area": you have to open it. Deal with a couple of small traps, then step on a wooden floor to rise stairs, lower a pillar with an invulnerability sphere and open a wall with the red key. All this while you'll be facing a large bunch of enemies teleporting and guarding the red key.

The blue key (and another big trap)
The stairs that have rised up will take you back to the starting room, where lots of imps have appeared. Once you've killed them, go into the hallway across from the first corridor of the map: a new room has opened, with two cages containig two arachnotrons and the blue key. Don't step into the room for too long: some walls will lower behind you, revealinf shootgunners behind some windows, imps on upper areas and some other stuff. To open the cages, open the only door in the room, walk towards the door across from it and the cages will rise.

The yellow key and a view of the final area
Continue opening doors until you get to a room with three doors: you can open any of those, they'll all take you to a hallway with gunners. There are two other hallways like that one (but the final one has got ips too). Notice that at each end of each hallway there are windows opening onto a wide outside area: if you want, you can kill lots of monsters from them. In the final hallway, these windows are scattered around. Also, in the final hallway is a door, leading to a dark room with chaingunners and the yellow key. This room also contains a big window from which you can kill enemies in the outside area.

The ending
What you saw from the windows is the ending of the map: a wide open area with lots of enemies. Backtrack through the three hallways to discover that in the room behind them a cacodemons' trap has opened. Open the door in that room and you'll see that two walls have opened, allowing you to enter the final part of the map. The outside area is composed of:

- A ledge you'll be walking on

- A pit with damaging floor

- Pillars with a few enemies

- A second wide open area which contains a mountain with several lost souls on it (that's why the level is called Mount Pain) and which is inaccesible except for an area which is the exit itself

What you have to do is to circle around the ledge killing every monster you meet until you come across a mancubus: it comes from an alcove with a switch that will reveal a lift. Take it, kill the enemies in the final section of the level (it can be pretty tricky because of their placement), find a teleporter and you'll be able to exit.

Secrets

 * 1) From the start of the level go west and turn left to the first corridor leading south. Open the middle part of the western wall to find some health bonuses.
 * 2) In the east part of the long spiral corridor filled with slime, there is a room with the impaled twitching body. Open the south wall of the room to find a radiation suit and a computer map.

Bugs

 * 1) It is possible to get stuck in the alcove housing the yellow key. The outside of the door is type 117 "PR; fast; Open, Wait, Then Close" but the inside is 118 "P1; fast; Open and Stay Open." If you open the door from the outside, go inside, wait for it to close, open it from the inside, and then trigger the outside, it will close and cannot be reopened from the inside again.
 * 2) In the original DOS version of the game, climbing to the top of the "mount" (with noclip) and turning towards the rest of the level will cause the game to crash due to visplane overflow.

Trivia

 * 1) The level presumably gets its name from the mountain-like structure in the far north-east corner of the map, which has several Lost Souls.

Records
The Compet-N records for the map are: