Blood Runners (#BLOODR.WAD)

BLOOD RUNNERS

by "Sphagne"

Sphagne sits alongside Gene Bird and Daniel Trim as an author who published levels prior to Community Chest and who submitted them back when the original CCHEST pitch was something more along the lines of, "Have you ever wanted to see one of your works ensconced within a megaWAD?" Thus far, the five Sphagne levels that I've covered--Simphony of Death, Secret Lab, Death Cycle, Hell Harbour, and The Living End--were not among the three maps that made it into the 2003 Community Chest. Blood Runners, which the author claims was his eighth produced level, became CCHEST's MAP23. It was originally released as part of a batch upload in 2002, a MAP01 replacement for Doom II. The author claims that he did not know that there was an online Doom community back when he authored these levels from 1995-1999, so one may assume that it will function in any source port.

Unlike Alex Parsons's World's End or Gene Bird's Blind Alley series, each one of Sphagne's maps appears to be a self-contained adventure. They are all kicked off with a bit of flash fiction that reads more like a synopsis of adventure stories from the golden age of pulp. In this case, you're some commando who is infiltrating the mountain stronghold of a tribe of individuals known as "Blood Runners". And, well, while you were climbing you somehow ended up dumping all of your weapons except for your pistol. Shucks! Exactly how "tribe" correlates to "has demons running around all over the freakin' place" I have no idea. I assume that the depths of depravity to which the Blood Runners have descended was either not known or is taken for granted. Maybe the whole thing is just an obscure reference to the Shadowman comic series.

The title, Blood Runners, stems from the fact that this level features a lot of toxic blood. It has something approaching a gruesome headwater at the level's southernmost point where the blood is made and then matriculates via a winding, spiral pathway that reaches its lowest point at the starting area, where you get an early hint as to the origin for the blood seen everywhere. Some portions of the level will involve you having to move through the blood but there are a few rad suits near the start to ease this process. Players exploring the sanguiduct on the level's western side, the one that takes the tomato juicer product toward the natural caves, have two more enviro suits in a closet for their perusal.

The level features an extensive installation that circumscribes the blood caverns. The west edge, as I've already detailed, transports the blood from its ultimate source to the caves proper. The east contains tech, some individual rooms (quarters, perhaps?), and a comically cubic crate "maze". Functionally, it's a cuboid chamber whose every surface is carpeted by crate textures. There are a number of ways in and out of it by lifts and the like, these being the key to navigating it. The monsters in it aren't especially dangerous with more than a handful of alcoves that are infested with imps as well as a bunch of revenants guarding a key. Altogether, it's the sort of piece of sector machinery that I love to see featured in an adventure map.

I'd say that it's unusual for a Sphagne level in its combat but this isn't necessarily true and this statement would be based on my evolving idea of an author as I play through their works sequentially. It's missing a sort of crazy setpiece fight like the ones seen in #SYMPHOD, #SLAB, and #DCYCLE but all of Sphagne's maps are otherwise awash in incidental combat. Well, hold on. I say that, but the big outdoor yard to the south starts out chock full o' demons. It just doesn't feel like the same caliber of setpiece brawl as the three Cyberdemon-features in the first three maps. The big difference between #BLOODR vs. #DCYCLE, #HHARBR, and #LIVEND is that the past three levels have had more or less open layouts. They might not be easy for the player to move around in--at least, at first--but they allow the monsters to get plenty of cheap shots from afar and facilitate the movement of fliers like cacodemons, particularly in the case of Death Cycle and The Living End.

Blood Runners just feels like a constant stream of relatively low-key action, the emphasis being more on the areas that you explore. There's a lot of "see trash monsters, shoot trash monsters" type action as you investigate the base but there are some memorable bits of monster placement, to be sure, like the enshrined arch-vile in the western storage room or the caged revenant found early in the blood tunnels trek. There's a cute moment when you enter the east-central wing of the fortress where you're treated to a seemingly constant stream of lost souls. A lot of the higher-HP monsters are few and far between, however. I was wondering why the cacodemons are mostly relegated to the outdoor area around the corridor that leads to the southern yard. I imagine that Sphagne let the narrative of the map inform its action, here, with the monsters shooting themselves in their collective foot by juicing most of their aerial support.

My least favorite part of this map is basically the finish because I didn't find the plasma gun or BFG that are heavily hinted at in the .TXT file but which I didn't read as thoroughly as I should have. This is rich considering that most of the early game woes were allayed by the "demon head" semi-secret that Sphagne also alludes to and which I discovered completely by accident. Having a combat shotgun and backpack at the start is some strong mojo. The exit room will eventually be armed with a Cyberdemon. It's not difficult to slay with the SSG considering that it can only move back and forth in the window. My advice is, make sure that you give the crate warehouse a very thorough combover before you leave it for good.

If some of the previous Sphagne levels seem a bit daunting, like the hitscanner madness of Hell Harbour, then Blood Runners is a great one to try out. You get to enjoy the author's predilection toward big, adventure-style levels with a big bodycount and quite a few secrets to tease out. Heck; I'm even looking forward to playing it again in Community Chest, the next time with its Hellish E3 sky. Maybe then I'll take the time to get one of the cell ammo weapons.

BLOOD IN BLOOD OUT