[Doom] THINK12.WAD - E1M2 UV Maxdemo
Channel: rybacksda
Date: 21/05/2013

Pwad: Think12.wad
Author: Denis Auroux 
Date: 8th April 1994
Map: e1m2
Category: UV Maxdemo
Executable: Doom.exe
Time: 1:43

I think I basically sort of panned the last Denis Auroux level (THINK11.WAD). Is this one any better? Well, in the sense of a level in Doom you'll just play through, actually probably not. Denis seems even less interested in detailing, or gameplay, or even monsters. The last level had 27 of them, and even though this one is probably twice as big there's only 21 here. The first two rooms in particular are incredibly bland and uninteresting, they must have taken five minutes if that to finish. There's space for hundreds of monsters here, and yet all he's put in there are 7. 

This level is all about showcasing tricks and traps. And to be fair, there are two decent ones here. Firstly, you've got the crusher hallway. The dark lighting obscures the fact that the ceiling's descending above you, so that you won't notice until it's almost too late. The length of the corridor also makes it feel like there's nowhere to run to in time. And then you'll notice the hiding alcoves. This is a complete contrast from the traps of the first level, which were always sprung on the player after it was too late to do anything about it. Here, the level teaches you how to avoid the death it's just lined up for you. The hiding alcoves are all brightly lit, a huge contrast with the dark hallway, which both draws your attention to them and makes their purpose as safe havens crystal clear. I also like the way they're spaced out in the hallway. There's always a near one you can get to comfortably in the time between the crusher's rise and fall, and a far one to tempt you if you feel like running all out for it. Having the option of going for one or the other helps the player feel like they're in control of how they're playing the level, rather than the author.

Then comes trap two, the falling stairs. This one is a nice surprise, and serves as an immediate shot of adrenaline. You're not warned ahead of time the curving path ahead of you is unstable, but the moment you feel the floor sinking beneath you it's obvious what's happening, and running forward is pure instinct, you don't even have to think about it. As in the hallway, the spacing has also been well thought out. These are wide stairs, they take some time to run across. So you've got plenty of time to watch them falling in front of you, and it always feels like you're not going to make it to the next one. You have to keep running, non-stop, or you won't make it. And then the level throws 90 degree turns at you. And 180 degree turns. And cacos rising up all around you...

A great trap, all up. In one sense it's flawed, because it's one use only. If you don't succeed in reaching the far end, that's it, there's no way to finish the level. But on the other hand this just raises the stakes, which increases the tension and the feeling of accomplishment when you do finally make it. Being given the BFG and an invuln feels like an earned reward.

I did have one extra problem here, which I don't think the author intended. It's not the cacos - it's the imps. There's three of them down there in the slime. I've got no idea what they're doing down there in the first place - after all, if you're in the slime you've already failed the stair trap, which means you're dead. Why give a doomed player more monsters to kill? My problem was how to make it to the end of the stairs, then kill those imps. The slime pit is quite a long way down, so if the imps are at all close to the exit the angle is far too steep for vanilla Doom's autoaim to target them. You've got no rockets, so you can't kill them with splash damage. How to solve this?

What I ended up doing was as soon as that room opened up (thanks to the switch at 0:58), I fired a shot to wake all the monsters up. This gave me some problems as it woke up the cacos, putting them in my way as I'm trying to run past the start of the stairs. But it also woke up the imps, drawing them toward me, and away from the exit. So when I've got the BFG and I turn around to see the crowd of monsters behind me, the imps are far enough away that I can just faintly see them in the slime, and the BFG takes them out. This didn't always work out - usually one would hang around the exit too close to kill. But a few runs eventually worked out. I chose this one as the cacos also went down fast - normally the BFG blows them so far away they don't take much damage from the final blasts, and I need to fire shotgun after shotgun to finish them off. Here I waited between shots for the cacos to regroup and close in again, and the strategy paid off, so that I could exit even before the invuln wore off.

Download from /idgames here: http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=102