Blind Alley B., "Octagon of Fear" (BNDALYB.WAD)

BLIND ALLEY B.

OCTAGON OF FEAR

by Gene Bird

Gene Bird had been a Doom hobbyist for some time before releasing the pieces of his Blind Alley series. It was basically a rainy-day megaWAD, developed since 1997, that he started polishing to publish in 2002. Eight of the fifteen maps made their way into Community Chest and CCHEST2, back when the folks involved were more enamored of the idea of pooling their levels together to make a megaWAD. (As opposed to, say, the level of quality control imposed on - most recently - CCHEST4.) It's sad to think that Bird is unfavorably remembered as a provider of filler levels, though I suppose that it's better than his peer and correspondent Kevin Reay's divisive legacy. Almost every entry in the Blind Alley series has an alpha-numeric designator and Octagon of Fear is "B". This references its slot in the to-be-finished megaWAD's running order, in this case MAP11. As it is presented here, however, it is a MAP01 replacement for Doom II, released in March of 2003.

BNDALY* has some semblance of a plot. You're living in your home town when demons attack, so your counter-assault leads you through a variety of locales including libraries, docksides, and municipal parks. Gene's style uses a lot of abstract level design so some of the ways in which the layouts relate to the real world are left to the player to imagine. Octagon borrows even less than others but the stone building façade and descending staircase sort of suggest some kind of hidden fortress. A lot can be excused, I suppose, as Hell's warping of our own reality, so it's conceivable that a chapel or crypt has been warped into something befitting their twisted desires. The level does have a sort of octagon in that the final series of chambers can be circumscribed by an octagon, so there is some truth to the level's name in that.

Gene Bird's combat and level design is pretty much Doom II comfort food. Enemy placement is straightforward and usually in mixed monster packs that do a fair amount of infighting before you slaughter the rest with the super shotgun. There is generally only one path forward with all other doors (or tunnels!) being locked until you pursue the current route to its end. Hence, I suppose, the Blind Alley moniker. It isn't entirely without guile as you must face occasional monster closets or mass teleporter ambushes, but it's otherwise very "what you see is what you get". GB does give you a rocket launcher and plasma gun, both of which are useful under fairly specific circumstances, the latter particularly if you're trying to fend off a mancubus at close quarters.

The rocket launcher has a bit more pull this go-around because most of the rooms are relatively spacious and give you ample opportunity for fatal funnels. Octagon has something of an architectural motif, here, though it's not something really iconic. Rather, it's a preponderance of rooms that you sort of step down into and which are gloaming with monsters. A lot of this feeling is due to the starting segment as the two wings that branch out of the blind alleys that frame the opening structure feature such rooms. And, uh, such easily-handled hordes of enemies. The last instance is toward at the end, within the iron cross-like structure. It also features the most intense of the battles, a major teleporter-fueled incursion with two destination points. Of course, since it's Bird, you are open to darting back outside and pruning the flood from the high ground.

As far as Gene's work goes, BNDALYB is fairly handsome if nothing like the "Circle of Death" that its name (and slot) draw comparison to. The opening room, building façade, and irregularly-shaped but symmetric wings stand apart from his often boxy rooms. The big skylight-riddled chamber to the north has a simple but pleasant look. While inscrutable, the abstract cobblestone slats in the northern segment of the cross make for a much more interesting room than any of the other three spokes. The plainest Bird gets here is a rectangular room with an irregular heptagon platform in the center, still interesting construction-wise since it's sealed off from the rest of the room and accessed via lift.

His layouts also tend toward looking and feeling stringy, the biggest exception on his timeline being Spirit World - Headquarters. Octagon isn't any less linear but it doesn't bother trying to try to tie anything together. Rather, it uses teleporters to navigate between segments a la "Nirvana". A few of the trips are one-way, so keep that in mind before making the jaunt. Transporters also figure into an irregular octagon-shaped room that sports a megasphere in its center. If they weren't a crude method of simulating Doomguy jumping between ledges and then to the prize, then it might have made for an inspired bit of teleporter-fu. The monsters on the platforms can't go back and forth, though, so they end up circling the drain and winding up on the central pillar. It still adds a little bit of confusion at the beginning stages of the fight.

The Blind Alley series has been a nice corner of normalcy to visit when mapsets - contemporary or otherwise - have systemically raised the bar for what constitutes challenging content. Octagon of Fear isn't any different and I look forward to the next casual stroll down Bird's monster-infested corridors. If you're looking for something more polished then, well, this one won't win you over.

THEY PAVED PARADISE

AND PUT UP AN OCTAGON