MAP28: Run From It (Scythe)

MAP28: Run From It is the twenty-eighth map of Scythe. It was designed by Erik Alm, and uses the music track "Getting Too Tense" from Doom II.

Run From It was featured in Doomworld's Top 100 Most Memorable Maps, placing 31st.

Essentials
You have very little time to beat this level or you will die. In fact, you have around 30 seconds to do it. As a result of this the map is very hard to beat with 100% kills. The path may be different depending on your chosen skill level. If you are playing on higher skill levels, there will be torches that block potential shortcuts.

At the start, go get the weapons, and go up the staircase where it says "RUN!". At this point, move as fast as you possibly can. At the top of the stairs you will see the blue skull key, but you need to go around the cavern to reach the bridge leading to it. Be wary of lost souls as you do. Grabbing the key causes two chaingunners to be revealed. To open up the blue barrier, you need to head back to the eye switch with the blue bars, it was guarded by a lone imp. Now quickly go past the blue barrier, and you will end up on a path that zigzags around. If you are playing on a lower skill level, some of the torches will be gone, which makes your exit easier. However, you still need to be fast. At two points on the path, the floor will break away. Make sure not to fall off the main path when it happens, or you cannot escape. One particular path breaks apart leaving only a small span, as well as a revenant harassing you from the other side. Stick to the right and get across quickly. After that, just follow the path to the exit, but watch out for the arachnotron and chaingunners right by it.

Secrets

 * 1) At the end of the run are several alcoves. Enter the middle one on the left side to get a soul sphere. (sector 164)

Bugs
Played this map with Brutal Doom 21. Player set on "always run". I've tried over and over. Practically impossible to beat. There is no way you can get to the end in time. The "force" that kills you does it long before you can reach the end of the level, no matter how fast you run. During the race I even used the jump to cut some parts of the course, and it didn't help. This says a lot. Old dirty developer's trick. Make an impossible level to increase the longevity of the game.

Things
This level contains the following numbers of things per skill level:

Technical information
As you walk past the "RUN!" carved into the floor, you trip some line triggers which start things happening in behind-the-scenes areas of the map.

The most critical is a raising floor, which holds a voodoo doll. When the floor reaches the ceiling, the doll starts getting crushed, and a co-located barrel explodes for good measure. As with any voodoo doll, this imparts damage on your player as well, quickly killing you. The long height the floor has to travel provides the short time-delayed death that is the central feature of this map.

The other thing that starts happening is a chain reaction of explosions in some long lines of barrels. At the other end of each row of barrels are some monsters, placed next to teleports. As the explosions reach the monsters, they get knocked into the teleport, warping them into the playable area of the map. This provides some time-delayed monster surprises for the player.