SQUARES
From DoomWiki.org
SQUARES is a single-level mod for Doom II by Costa Lappas, released March 26, 1995. It is significant for being one of the first slaughtermaps; both the author and retrospective /idgames commentary note its exceptional difficulty, relative to a typical mod of the era.
Contents
Walkthrough
Overview
In 1995 this would have been considered a concept map to some degree, back before editors had polygon templates and drag-and-drop copypasting. It consists of sixteen square rooms tessellated around a larger central square. Each corner room contains a megasphere, all hitscan weapons, shells, and bullets. At each of the four compass directions lies a heavy weapon on a carpet of ammo, but attached to a trap unleashing formations of shotgun guys, barons, and pain elementals, with arch-viles capering in a cage behind. The trap will also open a broad window into the central chamber (H), exposing you to spiderdemon fire. Interposing rooms are packed with a single type of monster apiece (in all, fourteen of Doom II's twenty species are represented). Each group's population increases with skill level.
There are no health pickups apart from the megaspheres. Once you have the red key, however, the worst is over (bosses and arch-viles notwithstanding) because everyone else can be slain from behind locked doors or by cornerhiding if needed.
Essentials
Arm yourself at the start point (A). Proceed clockwise through the squares to a group of Wolfenstein SS (B), where the red key is hidden behind the south wall. Along the way you will encounter, in order: demons, a plasma gun (with trap as above), arachnotrons, a supply room as above, revenants, a rocket launcher (with trap as above), heavy weapon dudes, and another supply room.
Proceed west through a red door (C), where you will find a BFG9000. Picking it up triggers the window and reveals the blue key (D), which is itself trapped as above (lost souls replace shotgun guys).
Westward through another red door is a room of arch-viles (E); the yellow key is hidden behind its south wall. You can now reach the exit in the very center of the map, first by passing through one of eight blue doors in the single-monster rooms (F), then opening the black-paneled central structure which is a yellow door. The latter action releases a wave of cyberdemons, several invulnerability and partial invisibility powerups, and four sniper monsters atop columns (imps on skill levels 1 and 2, heavy weapon dudes on skill 3, arch-viles on skill 4 and 5). Pressing any skull switch on the red pillar (G) ends the level.
Other points of interest
You can continue around clockwise back toward the start room, which brings you consecutively to a fourth supply room, mancubi, another rocket launcher room, and imps.
Due to the lost soul limit, pain elementals collectively can attack only a few times on skill 3, and not at all on skill 4 or 5, until the blue key trap is cleared.
Cyberdemon rockets do not clear the windowsills unless fired from the opposite side of the chamber. When they awaken, grab an invulnerability and either backtrack to a blue door or arch-vile jump through a window. You can then attack without retaliation (assuming the spiderdemons are all dead and you stand at least 1024 units from the nearest sniper).
Secrets
- The door to the red key alcove counts as a secret. (sector 110)
- The door to the yellow key alcove counts as a secret. (sector 112)
Bugs
- Vanilla Doom's savegame size limit is exceeded on skill 4 and 5. Attempting to save will halt the application.
- Ghost monsters are a common occurrence due to the frequent battles near doorways, unless the room full of arch-viles is carefully contained. The author acknowledges this in the readme and recommends detonating rockets against walls to kill the ghosts.
Demo files
Areas / screenshots
Start point
Excuse me, is this a private party?
A bigger gun will have immediate practical application
Hit the exit switch, or go for a few more kills?
Speedrunning
Routes and tricks
Current records
The records for the map on the Doomed Speed Demos Archive are:
| Style | Time | Player | Date | File | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UV speed | 1:00 | TimeOfDeath | 2009-01-10 | 1squ-100.zip | |
| NM speed | [notes 1] | ||||
| UV max | 4:09 | TimeOfDeath | 2009-01-07 | 1squ-409.zip | |
| NM100S | 1:20 | TimeOfDeath | 2009-01-11 | 1squn120.zip | |
| UV -fast | 4:55 | TimeOfDeath | 2009-01-11 | 1squf455.zip | |
| UV -respawn | |||||
| UV Tyson | |||||
| UV pacifist |
- This data was last verified in its entirety on March 5, 2016.
Notes
- ↑ Because both secrets are required to complete the level, NM speed and NM100S are nominally equivalent. A distinct NM speed recording could be created via the noclip bug or similar exploit causing one or both secrets not to register. Per Compet-n practice under Adam Hegyi, if a valid demo were submitted using such a trick, the NM speed category would be maintained going forward.
Deathmatch
Statistics
Map data
| Things | 1328 |
| Vertices | 448* |
| Linedefs | 544 |
| Sidedefs | 760 |
| Sectors | 133 |
Things
This level contains the following numbers of things per skill level:
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Technical information
This mod is stored in the file 1SQUARES.WAD, which is 89234 bytes in size. It contains 11 entries and has the following hashes:
| MD5 | 74a82fb17f3cf88db05a3aa825cb74c8 |
| SHA-1 | 59752494BCDB2B370D047BAFACB32F0F529BD581 |
| CRC-32 | 39bea0f4 |
Inspiration and development
SQUARES was later used as a base for the much larger Deus Vult.
Trivia
See also
External links
- SQUARES at Doomworld/idgames
- SQUARES (archived 🏛) at the Doomed Speed Demos Archive
