Iditarod (IDITAROD.WAD)

T. Elliot Cannon made something like seventeen single-player levels for Doom II and eleven deathmatch arenas before being recommended to Epic Games by John Anderson aka Dr. Sleep and being hired for Unreal. Both Iditarod and Odyssey were originally released on Compuserve, I believe, which makes an absolute timeline difficult to pin down, given that Compuserve shuttered its doors more than 20 years ago. I originally believed that Cannon made the individual levels of Odyssey first and then cobbled together Iditarod during the anticipation of Quake. After experiencing Iditarod first-hand, I wasn't so sure. Both PWADs were absolutely created by the same person, but I found it difficult to believe that Cannon built the carefully-crafted Odyssey first and then cranked out Iditarod. Looking through packages of his Deathmatch levels that I obtained after I initially wrote these reviews, it would seem that the true order of production would be SLEDDOG, IDITAROD, some of Odyssey, and then Grisha, all of this occurring in 1995. Both SP PWADs were uploaded to /idgames alongside Diabolos on April 7th of 1996. Iditarod replaces MAP01 through MAP10 of Doom II.

Unlike Odyssey, Iditarod makes no claim to a story. Cannon presents the levels as though they mirror the escalation of difficulty of Doom II's original campaign but across ten levels instead of thirty. Indeed, a few of these maps are actually Doom II homages. "LUPUS" (MAP01) is a punched-up remake of "Entryway"'s layout and "OVERTURE" (MAP04) was made in the image of "The Abandoned Mines"'s starting area. As a whole, though, it doesn't resemble a retread of Hell on Earth. If I was going to stick a narrative on Iditarod it would be as an extension of Cannon's Odyssey MAP03 ("INTERSTELLAR LIFEFORM RESEARCH BIO-YARD"). Like, a monster research facility that had some sort of containment breach, maybe achieving critical mass with the amount of infernal specimens, with a hole punched into reality in "YUKON" (MAP02). I say this due to the preponderance of cells and cell-like structures encountered throughout the set, as if the facility was twisted into a funhouse of demonic bloodlust.

Iditarod's level design is largely abstract and best resembles the classic "cool rooms connected by corridors" trope (with the occasional maze subbing in for a Cool Room tm). The first six levels are short, cramped, small monster count affairs (though not necessarily easy or simple by any stretch of the imagination) and brought to my mind Christen David Klie's BF_THUD. The last four maps are considerably larger, with monster counts three-to-four times the size of the first segment and featuring bigger playgrounds--and mazes--to move through. Iditarod has some sights and fights worth seeing. However, you may not be willing to partake of Cannon's specific gameplay stylings.

In his interview for 5 Years of Doom, Cannon described Iditarod in less than glowing terms, specifically using the term "experimental", which I generally take as an author doing some heavy-lifting for work that they now consider to be sub-par. Iditarod may be "experimental" as a whole, but it has a handful of key ideas that it rigorously and repeatedly uses in its level design, particularly once you cross the threshold into "MINES" (MAP05). One of the biggest key elements in the author's design language consists of timed-trigger sector machinery. This is usually accomplished via switches but you may have a walkover linedef or two to contend with as well. Generally speaking, these features tend to occur in pairs, often with one switch activating a lift while the other opens a door, with you having to flip both switches in sequence with the correct timing and then move deftly--sometimes torturously--in order to make it in time. One of the sequences in "SIENNA" (MAP07) took quite a few tries before I had the timing and fluidity of movement down.

Doom's actors having infinite height with regard to simplifying actor collision in combination with the fact that Doom was not capable of true "room over room" has led to idtech1 carrying the dirty appellation of "2.5D" for as long as I've been reintroduced to the community. The fact is, Doom IS a three-dimensional game, whether or not it's capable of complex 3D geometry. The way some people behave, you'd think that Doom is basically just Wolfenstein 3D but with walls capable of being rendered at any angle. Being an architect, Cannon has emphasized Doom's capability of creating three-dimensional spaces. One of the ways in which he highlights this is requiring the player to "jump" over pitfalls. Sometimes, this must be accomplished by riding a lift up from which you make the leap.

Both of the previous design elements appear in Cannon's Odyssey, but the way in which they appear here feels more like the PWAD is a representation of Cannon's purestrain gameplay subconsciousness. You've got to be a pretty chill PWAD spelunker to get the most enjoyment out of these maps. ESPECIALLY with "TYR1" (MAP09). This level appears to troll the player while subverting Cannon's beloved gameplay tropes, and it's all centered around one thing: the blue key pillar. The blue key pillar is located at the far end of a nukage pit and right behind it is a balcony. There's a switch in the mess of corridors right before the pit and right next to the switch is a little slat that you can see the pillar through. Flipping the switch momentarily lowers the pillar, but I'm 99% sure that there's no way that you can make it to the blue key in time from the switch.

A charitable reading of the situation is that the switch is meant to clue the player into the fact that this pillar is like plenty of other pillars that have already been encountered through Iditarod and can itself be "used" to trigger its lift cycle. However, in order to reach MAP09, the player must have already forced their way through several levels of timed switch insanity, and may be too switch-fatigued to consider using the pillar itself as an alternative. Furthermore, it's possible to leap from the blue key pillar to the balcony. Don't do this unless you have the red key as there's no way to get back. It's a speedrunning trick that saves you from having to fight your way through the western chasm room normally and also cuts down the amount of backtracking that must be done. I think that it's a relic from when this was originally a co-op level. Unfortunately, having played through the rest of Iditarod, it's easy to look at the balcony and intuit that you're meant to leap onto it. That's what I did, and it resulted in a softlock and many, many minutes of trying to figure out what I had done wrong. Maybe the intent was that one player could grab the blue key and take a shortcut to the yellow, then fight their way back while the other fights their way forward.

Cannon's style of combat focuses on congestion and cramped spaces. He intimates that the player must be capable of using the advantages they have in order to defeat the monsters. Generally, we associate Doomguy's greatest power as being his speed. However, the greatest ability that the player has is a sort of limited immortality, with the capacity to learn from their deaths. At least, that's how I think you're meant to suffer through some of these fights. Take the start of MAP05, for instance. You step east across a slow-descending lift trigger that puts you in a crossfire between revenants and chaingunners with your only escape chock full o' shotgun guys. If you cheese the lift and then hang back, though, then you can gun down most of the sergeants.

Toward the end of this level is a catwalk which prompts a hefty cacodemon attack. You're likely to be mobbed, especially if you panic and take one of the two teleporters, but if you lay down suppression fire with the rocket launcher and then pick off cacos with smaller arms fire until you get uncomfortable, then the teleporters will place you in an ideal position to finish them off. MAP07 is a similar sort of situation. Here, stepping up to the highly tempting shotgun puts you in a world of hurt between two fronts of imps. If you pick up all the scattered shells and then trigger the trap by grabbing the gun last, then you can duck into the starting alcove and take advantage of Doomguy's ability to dodge imp fireballs within a 64-unit corridor.

Further exacerbating this issue is Cannon's affinity toward timed triggers in both progression and backtracking. This creates situations where you're running (and often sprinting) into the next, unexplored room and then must survive before you can set about figuring out what you're supposed to do. There is often a switch that opens the door you just came through tucked away within the room. If I had to liken this format to any Doom author that I've played before then it would be Kevin Reay's Industrial, though TEC's escape rooms are much simpler and more front-loaded in their dangers than Magikal's tricks-and-traps boxes.

After playing Iditarod, I'm a bit exhausted. All of the switch play and secret (and semi-secret) doors ends up being an unusually cerebral play, and that's not even considering where I veered off-course with MAP09. It's well within my wheelhouse of what I like to sink my teeth into, though, and while I could have done without a few things--like the ultra-long lifts in "MALAMUTE" (MAP10)--I'm glad to have seen this raw side to Cannon's level design. It's furthered my appreciation for him as a kindred spirit to Eternal Doom if not in terms of complexity then in how it forces its player to mentally map and relate to the three-dimensional space that the player character occupies. I don't know if I'd recommend it to the average player, as rough around the edges as it is, but if you enjoy levels from '94-'96 then it's definitely worth a gander.

IDITAROD

by T. Elliot Cannon

aka "Myscha the Sled Dog"

LUPUS

MAP01

This is a reconstruction of "Entryway" but with, like, much meatier surprises that force the player into action much earlier. The first of these is a BIG imp ambush on grabbing the shotgun but there's an even more dangerous ambush in the green armor annex. As with a lot of Cannon's work, congestion is king. The remake of the penultimate room is a fun twist with you having to do some platforming while under assault from the caged imps. It's basic, but it's fun.

MAP02

YUKON

Parallels to Doom II are less clear, here. The first half of this map is dominated by a cramped labyrinth full of zombies and imps, which sort of suggests "Underhalls". The second is a jaunt into an infernal cave with beasties including pain elementals whose psychedelic visuals are more indicative of "The Spirit World". There's a pretty cool moment where you grab the combat shotgun and then have lost souls approach from a closet below while cacodemons come at you from afar.

MESA

MAP03

HOLY HELL! This is a hornets' nest style crossfire, something I hadn't quite seen from Cannon apart from maybe the outdoor area of Odyssey's MAP03. This is a sort of compact city-style level, like a courtyard in between ruined buildings, to paint a charitable picture of its setting. The killing floor is littered with hitscanners; there are chaingunner and imp snipers in key areas; and several revenants are all too eager to pop out and ruin your day. The action is pretty frontloaded as a result, with the buildings themselves--apart from the two revenants to the northwest--not offering much of a challenge. I was able to figure out the timed triggers for the soul sphere, which you likely won't get until the map is nearly over, but I couldn't figure out the green armor.

MAP04

OVERTURE

As pointed out in the .TXT, this is a tribute to "The Abandoned Mines" (Doom II MAP26). It's more or less a level that iterates on the central area's theme, primarily composed of plated metal walls and cage bars that block off areas housing enemies. There's a very Diabolos moment early on where the player must face down four pain elementals that advance into the main playing area. I really like the design of the northern room with its imp cage roundabout, though, and the room-wrapping walkway in the final, southwestern room feels decidedly Plutonic to me. Cannon has lost souls lurking at the top of the elevators that lead you out of the pain elemental chamber pits, which seems an unusually dickish move if you're unaware of them.

MINES

MAP05

And I thought MAP03 was nasty. This is a super-compact level that sort of feels like an extension of MAP04 with a lot of timed trigger sector machinery required for progression and a couple of really ballsy fights, at least from pistol start. The very first ambush, where you're stuck between a cage of revenants, a cage of chaingunners, and an alcove slam full of shotgun guys, will easily slay you dead. The final room has a comparatively enormous cacodemon ambush that seems best handled by laying down as much rocket fire as you can and then using one of the teleporters to blink over to one of their monster closets, where you're in a far more maneuverable position. The timed trigger that's required in order to access the yellow key is one of those things that you just have to listen for.

MAP06

ROMA

Okay, well, apart from the early shotgun guy ambush, this is a very chill level rendered primarily in marble. There's a lot of single shotty action against imps and demons. The final trench, which pits you against a wall of imps with the spectres in the lava eating your shots with autoaim, feels like a novel setup. The lava can be a guaranteed death sentence, though, especially if you pick the direction that leads to the yellow skull key first.

SIENNA

MAP07

"Sienna" doubles down on many features of the PWAD encountered thus far. This is a gauntlet level, the monster count bloating up to 213, that emphasizes the kinetics of Doom. There are quite a number of puzzles involving sector machinery that require flipping switches to trigger an elevator and then open up the door at its top in sequence. The one that's required to get out of the shotgun guy slaughter room took awhile for me to master, and once you get back up to the top you find out that the timed door is into another crossfire. This level more than most seems to service Cannon's ideology. TEC was very fixated on the way in which the player moves through Doom's spaces. The opening shootout puts the player between two crowds of imps. The safest move is to grab all the shells, grab the shotgun, and then head back into the starting alcove, making use of how effectively you can dodge fireballs in a 64-wide corridor. The imp chambers to the south are a mix of Cannon's platforming by columns as well as tricksy door and lift switches. The final room consists of a very narrow ledge that runs around the periphery of an irregularly-shaped cistern. It's not a difficult area to clear, but at some point the spectres are likely to block you from moving around the edge, which is why there are two enviro suits in the drink. The grid 64 maze is the nadir of this level, a stretch of narrow corridors that's mostly dotted with shotgun guys with the occasional chaingunner, specter, or revenant. I don't enjoy Cannon's save-or-die descending lift traps, but they are usually so close to the start that they don't really bother me. The room with the pentagram of candles got my goat, though.

MAP08

CANIS

Well, the setup is a sort of silver tech hub where you ride elevators down to dangerous rooms and then get the full flavor of whatever the wing is. I feel like the meat of this map is in the east wing, which ends in a pretty cool looking outpost structure that has me wondering whether Iditarod actually came BEFORE Odyssey or if Cannon decided to start edging away from his more abstract / functional level design. For a wonderful psychedelic moment, check out the big step platform staircase in the southern wing, which also has a badass lift effect. The end of level guardian is a Cyberdemon in what would ordinarily be an incredibly awkward layout, but all of the room's ledges are usable, so make use of them.

TYR1

MAP09

I soft-locked myself on this level because I did something that I assumed Cannon wanted me to: jump from the blue keycard platform to the other side of the little imp balcony. User, if you do this without already having the red keycard, then you'll be stuck. On the one hand, this level has some interesting room shapes and platforming bits. On the other, it's deathtrap dungeon, with plenty of timed door buttons and narrow corridors to navigate, all of which you'll have to deal with in reverse when you reach the ultimate troll in the level's layout. When you reach the yellow key wing, you'll be able to reach the balcony where I soft-locked myself and look back at the outdoor area that had the blue key. This is not a shortcut; it's just a reminder that you have to go all the way back through its stringy gauntlet in order to get back to the yellow key door. This is one of Iditarod's more evocative dungeon designs. That southwest room looks awesome. When going through the intended way, and after getting past the hallway segment leading to the blue key, this level felt less crazy than some of the previous sucker-punches. You can really cut loose with the rockets and there's a kind-of-hidden-but-in-plain-sight BFG available somewhere around the halfway mark in the room with the giant "T" lift.

MAP10

MALAMUTE

On the plus side, rather than a sort of dungeon like most of the previous levels, this is a string of distinct and above all large, cohesive areas for you to explore and battle it out in. On the negative side, this level has two obnoxiously long-ass elevators that you will have to suffer through, almost certainly multiple times per lift, while you figure out the general idea behind each zone. The huge-ass outdoor chasm area with the big imp brawl is really cool! I also did a double-take at the size of the lava cistern that makes up the map's northwest area (well, what little of it I saw as the second of the huge lifts took me past it). The teleporting imp / Baron rear attack pit fight felt like a pretty fun dynamic.

MYSCHA THE SLEIGH QUEEN