The first map in Dan Proietti's Castlemania series sets the tone for the rest, which generally feature simple but carefully detailed sandstone and greybrick castle interiors with stained glass windows, small water features and tiled or wooden flooring/bridges alongside moss or grass covered areas.

The basic structure of the level consists of seven square courtyards with open ceilings looking upon clear blue skies. Each courtyard stretches across two floors, generally with a stone bridge on the first and neatly trimmed grass on the ground. The rooms are connected by a series of doorways, corridors and small passages, and a small secret area underground contains a Ring of Shadows. Almost every weapon and item in the game makes an appearance here, and in general the more powerful the item in question, the tougher it is to reach. The final room at the highest point of the castle is flooded with lava on the ground floor and contains a Quad Damage across the other end of its (shattered) bridge on the first.

The legacy and mindset of the DOOM / 2.5D era is evident here, although the author didn't map for it, with fairly simplistic layouts that don't make too much use of the strengths of the Quake engine. The CMANIA levels aren't quite as inventive as Dan's later levels for Dapak, the Rapture series, or the failed Dapak2 project, but are worth playing for small free for alls and duels and stand out from the majority of other pieces from the same period.

The level is designed for deathmatch 3 (the gametype, not The Abandoned Base), which at the time was available only through QuakeC patches and not officially supported by id.

Dan's notes in the text file indicate that at the time of creating this map he wasn't sure whether he would continue the series, but two more Castlemania levels were produced several months later in the Spring of '97, simply titled Castlemania II and Castlemania III.

Castlemania II follows a very similar design style to the original and is also well worth checking out, as is the final map, which takes quite a different tack, being textured in polished grey stone with a more natural layout as opposed to the rigid, blocky styles of the others. In short, get the whole series and fire them up for some small LAN games, they all come highly recommended.