Ruma (RUMA.WAD)

RUMA

by Esa Repo aka "Espi"

It's taken about three years to get here since I first played Espi's Barons o' Fun, but I finally made it. Ruma made Doomworld's Top 100 WADs list as one of the entries from 2002. It's a single map for Doom II, to be played in what appears to be any limit-removing port. Historians take note: Repo intimates in the .TXT that this was going to be MAP03 of his mini-episode, with the author keeping the start and exit, intending to build an otherwise entirely new level. I know that Espi had two minisodes in the works, One Hell of a Day (which became Suspended in Dusk) and Rust (which became part of Back to Basics). After a brief scan--and a second scan--I confirmed that the starting area of Ruma has the same geometry as Suspended in Dusk's MAP03 starting area. I guess that this makes Ruma something of a lost level or a Deleted Scene, to crib from Russell Pearson's cut content showcases.

Because it's originally from Suspended in Dusk, this is a level that on its own begins in media res. You walk down a short corridor into what appears to be the the outer edge of the base that you're currently in, only to have your progress shut off by a red key door. West of you is a vast canyon with what appears to be several dingy bunkers and a satellite installation. It looks like the only thing that you can do is scour the canyon and its man-made structures for a security card, or failing that an alternate way through the complex. Will you find the red card and make it back to the base? Or will you be slaughtered by demons amongst the Stygian topography?

Like Karmea, Linna, and Laitos, Ruma is a Finnish word. The Wiktionary defines it as "ugly" with it being used in several different senses, like things that are aesthetically ugly, situations that offend us (leaning more toward morality), or words and phrases that are vulgar. Espi was sort of doubling with the first two meanings, here. Most of this level is dominated by a dirty, brown canyon with dingy brick building facades that are in stark contrast to the bright gray concrete facility in which you begin. Which isn't to say that the opening area isn't filthy-looking too with its water stains and copper oxide residue leaking out from the air ducts.

The canyon isn't just the geometric focus; it's also the locus of the level's combat. And it's rough. You have entrenched hitscanners on the north, west, and south sides of the topography in guard towers, bunkers, or from the windows of the satellite building; a bunch of imps on the stairs on the way up to the annex; a few o' pain elementals who pop out of the lava in the center of the chaos; Hell knights on a ledge in between the starting structure and the satellite base; a revenant standing watch over a secret soul sphere, with imps in the path cut out behind it; and, when you start delving into the western cave, some fourteen cacodemons enter in from the south. Yeah.

It doesn't feel like there's nearly enough health, but I could have just been playing a bit too freely. It isn't exactly hitscanner Hell but it sort of feels that way due to their relative distance and how many monsters you have in the open area. Plus, the elevators that you use to access the encampments to the north and south are blind so there's a very real chance that you'll pop up and get wasted. The soul sphere secret will be INCREDIBLY useful if you can find it but the passage is easy to miss in the darkness. It leads to the rope bridge that figures so heavily in the Top 10 WADs of 2002 screenshots (perhaps the coolest part of the PWAD). 

The northern annex looks like a segment from Laitos. Once you get past the grimy sewer-like tiling from the "open to the atmosphere" bunker it transitions through E2-ish greyish black brick before moving toward a sort of sandy concrete coloration that gives the semi-clean innermost reaches of the outpost a bilious hue. This is also the point where the muscle level gets jacked up. A very early potential encounter involves revenants coming down the main hallway with the Hell knight trio sneaking up on the player through a sneakily dual-purposed secret door. Clever! Once you've figured that out then the rest should be a snap.

The combat spends a lot of time feeling kind of panicked and frustrated as it's got a slow start with the Barons in the starting area and the two mancubi that are kind of awkward but rewarding to SSG to death early on (just watch for those revenant rockets!). I think UV is just one of those extra challenge playthroughs where it helps to know where the powerups are, like the green armor at the mancubi embankment and the soul sphere secret. Like, there's a late end-of-level teleport ambush with mixed revenants and Barons that is just fun to goad into infighting as the nobles clean house. After dealing with all those snipers, go ahead and enjoy yourself. You deserve it.

Ruma begins to deliver in earnest on the promise of Espi's ongoing texture artistry. It's part of what made Linna such a memorable experience and made TOLWATT an interesting curio. To paraphrase something that I think Scuba Steve wrote, the difference between a good megaWAD and a great megaWAD comes down to (great) custom textures, and Ruma takes you somewhere you haven't been before. Most of the custom assets are wrapped up in the canyon, which only figured given that it's the main showcase of the adventure. The rock faces, bunker facades, skull pillars, stagnant lava, and cavern walls are all new, not to forget the show-stealing rope bridge. The new yellowish-brown stone in the innermost recesses of the base help to extend the "familiar but different" feel to your satellite sojourn.

This map is cool on its own and also an interesting look at what could have been given its original status in Suspended in Dusk. Personally, I love SID's MAP03, but Ruma is a completely different experience. We're fortunate to be able to play and enjoy both. If you haven't given this level a shot and you like blasting your way across barren alien wastelands between pockets of civilization, then what are you waiting for?

THE RUMANIAN

DRAGOSTEI DIN TEI