Death Cycle (#DCYCLE.WAD)

DEATH CYCLE

by "Sphagne"

One of my main goals has been to play through the collective works of the contributors to the first Community Chest as a sort of vertical slice of a subset of the Doom community at the time. I'd also like to do the same thing for Community Chest 2. The original CCHEST is somewhat maligned as the original goal was sort of something like, "hey, who wants to see their levels in a megaWAD?" with authors Gene Bird and Sphagne submitting levels that they had previously published on /idgames. Three of Sphagne's published fourteen maps ended up in the first Community Chest. Death Cycle, a MAP01 replacement for Doom II that was uploaded to /idgames in 2002, was not one of them. From what I can tell, it ought to be vanilla compatible, as the author had previously developed these maps between 1995 and 1999 before realizing that there was a broader Doom Community on the internet. This sort of precludes the existence of Boom as a target port.

Sphagne apparently had something like nineteen developed maps, but there isn't really an overarching plot between them. It would be fun to imagine this, but Sentinel--number eleven--sits in the middle of the run and is built solely for deathmatch. The plot summaries of each map are typical Doom flash fiction. In Death Cycle, you're being punished for one reason or another. Maybe you got caught during a mission and the demons put you into some sort of lethal maze for their amusement a la Adventures in the Forbidden Zone. Maybe you're a convict who was sent to some sort of demon-infested region as a means of execution. In any case, you're in the Death Cycle, and while your outlook isn't great, it's not hopeless, as "the lucky ones could escape". So you're sayin' there's a chance!

I have quickly come to realize that Sphagne makes my kind of levels. Lots of moving parts re: sector machinery, tons of secrets, and complex layouts. Death Cycle is less sprawling a layout compared to Simphony of Death or Secret Lab, but the author took all of the trouble inherent in navigating those locations and then packed it into a tight, circular layout. The inner spaces are cramped, leading to troublesome close-quarters fighting with crafty foes like the revenant, and the various rooms are interconnected with windows so as to facilitate the movement of numerous cacodemons and lost souls. The windows are fair game for the player as well, so keep that in mind as you try to unravel the author's Celtic knot.

Sphagne is also all about spectacle, and one kind in particular. I opined in #SLAB that the author might have some kind of incredible infighting setup in a Cyberdemon in each of his levels. #SYMPHOD had a ridiculous, epic concert hall with a Cyberdemon maestro that you were meant to direct into infighting. #SLAB had a ring of Barons surrounding you that you had to sort of let Cybie peel off before you could escape. #DCYCLE is a more traditional arrangement of the "Tricks and Traps" scenario, except all of the Hell nobles have been exiled to an island. Also, for some reason, there's an arch-vile in a cage on the tip of the southern patio. In my experience, this dude was pretty much cooked between the onslaught of green shit from one end and potentially point blank rockets on the other.

This bit of madness is located in the level's outer ring and is the first thing that you see when you get there. The rest of the exterior area that isn't the sea of damage floor that surrounds the Death Cycle is a broad halo walkway that is regularly dotted by tall skull columns. And it's liberally staffed with demons, lost souls, and cacodemons. It kind of feels like "Tower of Babel" plus that one goofy bit from "Tricks and Traps" with Sphagne knocking the roaming monsters up a notch considering that you are absolutely intended to get the Cyberdemon to trade blows with the Hell noble horde until only one side remains.

The general tone of the level's combat is, err, cramped and scrappy. There is no plasma gun and no BFG, and while the Sphagne boasts of a secret rocket launcher, using one in the level's interior is a perilous proposition considering how small most of the rooms are. And, err, the possibility that the cacodemons and lost souls in the level's exterior will have matriculated to the inner regions. There are plenty of ways to get your grubby mitts on a shotgun but the "open" layout does not ensure that you will have anything of considerable power before you do something silly like open up the revenant clown car chamber in the eastern wing. That whole area is hot death, anyway, with a parade of hitscanners and at least three cacodemons more than willing to jump the line.

I'm pretty inured to "you did the wrong thing and so you die" things in Doom but I know that this is generally a major sticking point with most people who play games. That being said, there are a handful of elements in Death Cycle that make it a map better suited to folks who enjoy the rougher side of user levels. The switch that opens the path to the exit, for one. Sphagne hints that it's tricky to find. It's actually a shootable switch that's only visible/accessible after using another nearby switch. The moral of my story is, if you press a button and can tell that something changed but don't really see the point of what happened, then look very carefully.

I had a lot of fun with the Death Cycle puzzlebox. The layered secrets and points that utilize Doom's three-dimensional space via vanilla "jumping" are a definite plus. I hope that Sphagne keeps this same sort of design paradigm with the rest of his levels because this is sort of scratching my Jim Flynn / Bob Evans / mid-'90s itch though on a more casual level than, say, Kevin Reay's Industrial. If none of these design tropes appeal to you then I think that you can safely sit Death Cycle out. If you enjoy levels that must be manipulated like a Rubik's cube, though, then there's plenty here to enjoy.

IT'S LIKE A BICYCLE

EXCEPT HALF THE TIME, SOMEONE DIES