Europa 1 (EAEURO01.WAD)

EUROPA 1

by Erik Alm

Erik has gone on to great fame with Scythe II often lauded as the direct ancestor of the Doom community's current gameplay standards. He humbly began in 2001, though, kicking out five submissions for Sam Woodman's One Week Mapping Contest. Thus spurred into action, he started an impressive array of small solo releases. Europa 1 was his first such publication, a Doom II MAP22 replacement for Boom-compatible ports. If you're looking for something on the level of the 2003 Scythe's short, accessible first two episodes then, well, hunt somewhere else. This one is large and, as is the case with Alm's early output, not particularly fair.

Erik chose one of Jupiter's moons for his setting. You're the one and only space marine who campaigned across both of Mars's satellites and cut two swaths through Hell, the first to escape and the second to save the entirety of Earth. There are some superiors who resent you in spite of your heroics, though. When contact is lost to the outpost on Europa, they sit on it for two months before sending you on a "scouting" mission with only a pistol in hand. You're dutiful to a fault, of course, and accept the suicide mission in spite of the foreboding recon images and sinister look of your commander. Is he a stooge for the forces of Hell or is he just threatened by your reputation? Considering the outcome, is there any difference?

This is a massive, difficult level with several major gimmicks. The first is encountered straightaway as you look at six teleporter alcoves. Each one leads to a different section of the doomed Europa structure. The challenges of each destination are not equal and one of them consigns you to almost certain death by preemptively dropping you, unprepared, at the exit. Barring a particular exploit, of course. None of the choices make any of Alm's setups a breeze but I personally found the northwest / far-right alcove to have the most accommodating start. It situates you in what is roughly the center of the level so you have several different directions available to explore it to death. Your mileage may vary; hardcore players might have fun trying to pick apart the layout to successfully clear from the other starting points.

The other intrigue isn't initially obvious. As you explore in suffering you'll eventually run into multiple copies of the colored skull keys. You only need one of each to reach the exit the normal way, so what gives? Erik has created a helpful pictograph to relate their purpose via in-game geometry. Each triplet unlocks a prize that mitigates the severity of the final challenge. Not that it's all that difficult if you're capable of playing through the rest of the level regularly. The ending encounter is a Cyberdemon in a small tunnel grid. It's a perfectly manageable fight but locating each set of keys will individually grant you a megasphere, a BFG, and an invul sphere. Having the last two or really the invincibility alone would be a great way to simplify the clash.

This involves more than simply muscling your way through Alm's challenging encounters, though. I believe that one of each color key is only accessible via single-use triggers. It's virtually impossible to collect them without knowing what you have to do ahead of time since the observable action is not repeatable. I kind of checked out once I realized that I was locked out of both the yellow and blue keys and probably had the condition for the red one happen right under my nose. The combat itself is difficult enough without having to worry about a limited-opportunity puzzle that only helps you trivialize a small-scale "Cat and Mouse" fight.

Alm's thing placement is highly punishing. While the bodycount is high, the density never approaches the slaughter insanity of his "24 Cyber Spirits". The fortress is a network of long and generally tight hallways that connect larger areas that serve as the scenes of set piece fights. The corridors aren't any less imposing but are typically smaller-scale and more straightforward in their presentation. The most multi-faceted domains are situated in the north-western and -eastern wings. The west has several stages of combat, the first flushing you into the apparent cover of the super-wide columns only to discover the guerrilla chaingunners. It's a neat projectile Hell setup and more approachable in my mind than the ambush that you trigger when you approach the on-display plasma gun.

The eastern side's fun point is a huge, outdoor amusement park-style setup replete with staircases, a poison lake, and a battlement. The ground floor has some of that dodging action but Alm has an uncomfortable hitscanner Hell setup going between all the windows that you run past and the two bunkers on the upper level. It's a fun break from the ornate, rectilinear gothic architecture that dominates the rest of the level. Not that I mind Alm's artifice and his painstaking sector lighting. There are a few fun references thrown in for good measure, too. The most obvious to me is the southwestern chamber which looks like a hybrid of "The Courtyard" and "Dead Simple".

UV is a blood tornado and I wouldn't recommend it to any but the hardiest players. Most should try Europa 1 on HMP or HNTR. The former removes some two hundred monsters, neutering many of the more troublesome elements while preserving the overall feel of the fights. This may still be a bit much. In such a case, the latter setting cuts the original monster count in half and makes significant changes to overall monster composition including the removal of all of the Cyberdemons. One of the arch-viles may still be a bit much if you're caught off-guard at the reveal but the style of encounters is far more forgiving, turning it into a more or less typical castle level. Albeit with a somewhat deserted look, of course.

It's interesting to see the transition from Alm's varied and at times grueling output from ONEWEEK to here. There's a greater level of visual polish and the complex itself feels similar in essence to "24 Cyber Spirits", just without the dizzying excesses of its slaughter encounters. Europa 1 still pushes the envelope in terms of harrowing encounters and while it may not strike as strongly in mandatory puzzles the one-time keys offer a significant wrinkle. Doom cryptographers may still have fun unravelling the layout since you're given some freedom in where you start and many progression points still have timing elements. It's tough to recommend to folks who are most familiar with his Scythe series given the differences in flow and encounter design. Take a look if you don't mind wandering through long and occasionally narrow castle corridors.

THE FIRST QUEEN OF CRETINS