HELL HARBOUR
by "Sphagne"
Sphagne's main claim to fame is submitting of his previously-released levels to the original Community Chest. Like his contemporary Gene Bird, Sphagne had been crafting maps since the mid-90s only to start publishing them later in the early '00s. Hell Harbour is Sphagne's sixth level but a portion of his maps were apparently not deemed fit for release. Of the seventeen or so works whose existence is confirmed, #HHARBR is actually the sixth. Like the rest of these single map publications (Gene Bird's and Alex Parsons's), it's a MAP01 replacement for Doom II. It was published in 2002 but the story of its creation suggests that it ought to work in vanilla given that Sphagne "did not know about Doom communities accessible via internet", which sort of precludes source ports.
There is no overarching story across Sphagne's levels, but the bits of flash fiction that the author wrote read like synopses of pulp from '20s and '30s. You're part of some interstellar space-faring organization. Your base has lost contact with a scout ship dispatched to a new world, so you're on hot standby to teleport to it in the event that mission control can reestablish telecommunications. It seems unwise to send a human in without knowing anything of what's happening, but whatever. Base briefly links up with the scout ship, sending you to figure out what the situation is. As it turns out, the ship has landed in an ocean of blood, right next to a harbor stocked full of shipping crates and staffed with Hellspawn. Infernal pirates! Your goal is to disable whatever is interfering with the ship's communications so that you can uplink and inform mission control. And, uh, maybe get some reinforcements.
Hell Harbour is a very large, exploratory level. Sphagne thoughtfully steers the player away from D_RUNNIN, instead offering up OG Doom's "On the Hunt", which I associate strongly with Doom's "Mt. Erebus" (E3M6). You may feel more of a "Central Processing" (E1M6) vibe, especially with the start in the cubic confines of the crashed spacecraft, but whatever ambivalence I had flew away when I stepped outside, bearing witness to a sea of blood with at least one red rock island sporting cacodemons in the distance. You have one main connecting area, the multi-tiered crate yard that sits deep into the marble dikes that keep the blood from overflowing in, and several buildings on the level's periphery.
This is a tough map to get a foothold in. There are monsters everywhere, and while the sneaky lost souls that dart out of the crate stacks are obnoxious, I think that the most lethal are the numerous shotgun guys and chaingunners. The hitscanners felt VERY dangerous in this map, even more so because some of them start outside the main playing area in the blood ocean. These guys along with some imps and demons become roving gangs, unpredictable random encounters that will bust you down when you least expect it, having you unsure as to whether the main yard is ever truly safe. The author has a couple of pain elementals in the outer regions, too. While this is unsettling on a spiritual level, I don't think that the player spends enough time within their FOV, given the architectural layout with the blood dikes, for them to be nearly as troubling as the zombies. It would help if you fully explore the scout ship's interior before you step outside. There are two not-secret secrets, one of which is good to keep in your back pocket, the other kitting you out with a chaingun so that you don't have to wrest it from a commando.
Like Death Cycle, Secret Lab, and Simphony of Death, Hell Harbour is a level with a complex layout that challenges the player to create accurate mental models of the playing space in order to reach the exit. Death Cycle was confusing in how it offered eight different paths on two different elevations between cardinal and intercardinal directions, with the two tiers sometimes (but not always) interconnecting. You don't have to figure out all of the secrets of #HHARBR... but it'd be a lot cooler if you did! The key to the level is the northwest tower. This structure houses the blue skull key, which is important, but it also has a series of windows that you can do running leaps from in order to access three significant pathways. This sort of lateral thinking is eventually required in what was for me the level's most baffling segment, but I was thankfully already keyed into the importance of self-defenestration.
Also like Death Cycle, Hell Harbour has a secret key. Again, it's the yellow one, and if I had to guess it may be a bit of a motif going forward. It's possible to do a running leap on to the topmost crate tier, but for those who are having trouble, the yellow skull key unlocks a teleporter that circumvents this particular jump. I actually got lost trying to figure out what you are supposed to do as it was so fun exploring the various secrets. I think that players may be capable of soft-locking themselves if you jump to the alcove accessible from the green armor crate route without grabbing the blue skull key... but I don't know for sure when that aperture opens up.
My biggest fumble was the red skull key. There are several different blue doors that lead to the southeast tower, but only one of them actually grants access to it. The big one at the top of the elevator is actually barred off but it's good to take because you can thin out some of the monsters in what I can only describe as a pirate king's command center. It's sort of a DoomCute story moment where the demons have activated a security gate that you can't physically cross. Anyway, when you finally make it inside, the switch that you need to press seals off the crawlspace that you came in through, and there's no route back around the barred entryway. The trick--if you haven't been following along--is to jump out through the window and then go all the way back to the northeast building so that you can take the crawlspace again. The crawlspace was sealed because it's blocked by a new set of stairs, you see.
I think that having to walk all the way around back to the northeast building is a wee bit laborious but it isn't any more obnoxious than having to climb the northwest tower however many times you need to in order to figure out all of the Harbour's secrets. Even if it DOES come across as annoying, I think that it makes a level feel more like a concrete space and less like a streamlined dopamine delivery system. Not that there's anything about the latter that is diminished by not being the former, mind you. In order to really enjoy an exploratory, twisty level like this you have to commit to turning it around in your head over and over until you reach one of those "Eureka!" moments, like with the shootable switch in Death Cycle. This may not be something that part of Doom's audience thinks that it does exceptionally well, but it's a foundational aspect as reflected in its level design that harkens back to its dungeon crawler roots.
The other potentially frustrating aspect of Hell Harbour is its encounter stylings. So much of this map is dominated by incidental combat that doesn't feel like it should be so dangerous, but is. The roving gangs of pirates are a pain and there's at least one big teleport dump into the crate yard's floor that will make it difficult to do the sort of platforming that Sphagne is pushing. Indoors is less stressful, even if the caliber of the monsters is boosted. Hell island has one of the best single encounters, the one with the caged cacodemons, though maybe not if you aren't toting the secret plasma gun. It's also one of several ways to score a super shotgun, so I highly recommend a brief vacation. The ending "chasm" crawl is also a fun blastathon that turns on its head when you activate the spiral staircase.
The only thing missing is an ostentatious Cyberdemon battle. C-c-c-combo breaker! God willing, I'll see one in Sphagne's next level, The Living End. If you like puzzle-cube style layouts like I do, though, the lack of a rocket dispenser won't stop you from giving Hell Harbour a try.
HARBOUR FRIGHT
No comments:
Post a Comment