Cavemen (#CAVEMEN.WAD)

CAVEMEN

by "Sphagne"

Some folks wish that the first two Community Chests had been more exclusionary. Its original call to arms did not specifically ask for maps that had not previously been released, which is why Sphagne, Gene Bird, and Daniel Trim ended up submitting some of their previously-released maps to CCHEST, with Gene Bird sneaking a few (as well as one original!) into CCHEST2. The vast majority of Sphagne's material was concocted prior to him approaching the Doom community, during a period spanning 1995-1999, and then bulk-uploaded in August of 2002. The author claims that Cavemen, a MAP07 replacement for Doom II, is his ninth map, though it's the seventh in the running that was made available on /idgames. For those keeping score at home, the 1st and 3rd levels have never been (publicly) seen.

Most of the Sphagne levels have little pulp-adjacent flash fiction bits to accompany them but they don't chain together to form any broader narrative, unless it's driven by an impossibly pulp hero who ends up making two separate trips to and from the afterlife. With Cavemen, some of the wilder suppositions have been toned down. You've been captured by demonic cave-dwellers (totally different from Blood Runners, I'm sure) with all of your comrades either being murdered or turned into gun-toting zombies. While being kept alive for no adequately explained reason, you slay one of your pathetic zombie guards, taking its pistol to kickstart your campaign of vengeance. And, uh, escape.

Like Blood Runners, Cavemen is based around a large, underground network of tunnels and chambers. These passages connect what appear to be old, blasted-out tech facilities as well as a large, marble fortress. One key difference is that there is no toxic blood to navigate or trace out. It's just you versus the cavemen... and, uh, like the most torturous platforming backtracking I've seen in quite awhile. You've got to wonder how exactly the Carcerian cave-dwellers manage to eke out an existence if they have to go through the capitulations that you have to once you finally start to get the layout of the map under your thumb.

In execution, this map is a long, linear treck around its circumference until you wind back up at the canyon that you first descend into, finally clinching the combat shotgun. It's a long, long time to wait to get the SSG, during which you'll have an opportunity to acquire the secret-but-obvious plasma gun and rocket launcher. There is a large, outdoor yard in the center of the map that sports a Cyberdemon who's ripe for infighting and I guess that you can use it as a "shortcut" to reach the eastern canyon from the massive, western cavern complex, but I think that this would be inviting more problems than it would solve.

The opening feels a little harsh since there's only one truly viable route at the beginning with the other two canyon paths resulting in dead-ends and wasted resources. These faltering steps come relatively early and quickly, though. The sole biggest combat difficulty I had in the entire level is the western underground cavern. The sheer number of hitscanners and the way that monsters keep matriculating into the area's various doors, I guess linking them to the inner yard, makes for a lengthy, grueling experience. In stark contrast, the inner yard has something like three invul spheres that are ostensibly meant to be used to ease its difficulty, with you even getting one for the big BFG bash at the end of the map.

Once you get through the western cave, you're directed toward the southeastern outdoor area, whether it's around through the south or as a shortcut through the central yard. Brain-teasing Doom platforming is one of my favorite bits of complex progression, but it gets a bit long in the tooth here, mainly because you have to run halfway back down the canyon in order to get back to the northernmost platform. I get the why of it but it would have been far less frustrating if there had been a switch inside that bunker that raised up a little stair, much in the same way that arriving at the SSG platform from the east end completes the level's ouroboros, linking the east and west for a complete circuit.

This one may throw you for a loop given how relatively straightforward the last few Sphagne maps have been. There's a semi-hidden switch on one of the marble columns that raises a platform that links the two elevated doors in the temple chamber. More importantly, be mindful of the fact that this level is in the MAP07 slot. I don't think that there is any special 667 function but there is absolutely some sector machinery executed via the 666 tag and it's required in order to complete the level, being linked to the red key storeroom. Thankfully, all of the mancubi are in one major area--a marble stronghold to the west of the temple--but there are so many of them that you may be tempted to just give them a pass, especially since the majority are in some sort of a central holding pen and appear to do little else but sponge up your ammo.

#CAVEMEN is a pretty cool-looking level. Sphagne has elected to use the gorgeous night sky from Daniel Griffiths's Xenomorph: The Complex, giving the rugged wilderness a sort of quiet, natural beauty when you're not getting slavered at by some three-hundred monsters. I like the stepped structure of the cavern areas, the marble parts look neat, and the north and south sections have the awesome look of dilapidated megastructures, with some rudimentary holes punched into the sides of the silo-like buildings. I kind of wish that the silo structures were developed a bit more as they accentuate the southeastern area to make it my favorite architectural bit of the entire map.

Sphagne is sort of giving me the same fix that I was looking for after having played Alex Parsons's enormous adventure maps but with a more identifiably '90s sensibility. I may complain about the platforming and triggers but I still had a blast adventuring through this map. Once I got through the southwestern cavern, anyway. If big, blasty adventure maps with somewhat tricky progression is your Platonic ideal of a Doom level then you ought to give Cavemen a shot.