Doomier Doom: Episode 2: The Shores of Hell

 The Shores of Hell is the first half of "Retail Doom" the two episodes you got by mailing a check in for some floppies back in 1994. Supposedly, a lot of people didn't realize this, and thought they were done at the end of Knee Deep in The Dead. This seems hard to believe since it had like 3 different ORDER INFO screens, and told you in the end of episode text, but what do I know, I was like 4 at the time.

I think Shores is a strong contender for the best official DooM level pack. It takes place on Deimos (one of Mar's moons) which has been transported "above" Hell. Thus, we get a cool "techno-hell" style that, to me, will always be the iconic Doom setting. 

Considering how much is in the Episode 1 demo, it's even more impressive how much new stuff is in here.

1. New gun: Plasma Rifle. Basically just a more damaging chain gun that uses different ammo.

2. New monsters: Cacodemon. Fills the "mid tier" role in Doom. Weaker than the bosses, but tougher than the zombies and imps. It can fly, and appears to have been almost directly copied from an old D&D book cover.

Lost Souls: The other flying monster. Basically annoying flaming demonic ping pong balls.

Cyberdemon: The Barons of Hell from last episode are now semi-common enemies (often flagged by giant carvings of their heads in a nice atmospheric touch), so we get their big brother. While not the final boss of the whole game, the Cyberdemon is really the definitive DooM boss. Takes a ton of hits to drop, and give it back with a rocket launcher.

A cool preview on the textures, with the missing body parts mirrored

Shoot it 'till it dies!

New powerup: Invincibility. Pretty self explanatory.

First "gimmick" secret level: "Fortress of Mystery" which is supposed to be based around monster infighting. Maybe if you pistol start it. (More on both of those later).

First crushing ceiling!

First crate maze! Back in ye olde 90s, it was common for FPS levels to basically be mazes with monsters sprinkled in (for what its worth, I think Doom does a good job of sprinkling these in, while also including some more dynamic level styles). E2M2 "Containment Area" is the first "crate maze" a level designed to look like a warehouse using repeated crate blocks to create a "realistic" and complex level within the confines of the engine.

Crate mazes would eventually become a cliche of level design. Entire websites even ran features mocking it.

At the time, it's fairly original. And it is a good level (it has non-crate parts too, which help). It even won a tournament to be named the best official Doom level back in 2015.

So, yeah. Lots of cool new stuff, and an all around solid set of levels. Two quick comments on some Doom design quirks before I close out:

1. "Pistol Start" By default, if you load a level without coming right from another (like you used to do from the command line in the old days) you start with no weapons but your fist, a pistol, and 50 bullets. It's still generally considered good etiquette for levels to be completable from a pistol start, even 30 years later.

This can lead to an issue in designing whole episodes however. A level with "just enough" guns/ammo might be too easy if you come in with all your gear from previous levels. This is particularly noticable in two levels in this episode. "Tower of Babel", the finale, has you facing down the Cyberdemon with no pickups besides a rocket launcher, mirroring its own loadout. If you come in from the rest of the episode, you'll probably have a plasma rifle (there's one in every map) and quite a bit of ammo. The plasma rifle is great for clearing out the Lost Souls that serve as filler, and arguably more useful against the boss itself than the rocket launcher, making the level much easier and a significantly different experience.

It's even more noticeable in this episode's secret level, "Fortress of Mystery." In theory, you're supposed to lure a pack of Cacodemons and a group of Barons into a fight, with only a modest store of ammo scattered around the level. In practice, it's much easier to just gun them down individually with the guns you brought from earlier in the episode.

2. Monster Infighting: DooM monsters aren't very smart. Their AI can basically be boiled down to: Notice player> walk in their general direction (with minor randomization to help them get around obstables)> Randomly attack in their general direction>Repeat.

If another monster is in the way, they'll often attack anyway (or one might wander into the path of a slow moving fireball). If this happens, the monster that gets hit might turn and attack the other monster. It's a fun little design quirk that isn't exploited a ton in the base game (entire levels will eventually revolve around it), but still cool. Just one of those little things Doom does to be fun that you don't see in modern games as much.

Next week INFERNO!