For the Doom 2 pwad "Build" by picklehammer (warning: this is a very bad map indeed)

File required: build.wad
Download link: ftp://3darchives.in-span.net/pub/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/a-c/build.zip

Map01

Skill: Nightmare! Pacifist

Kills        50%
Items         0%
Secrets     n/a% and Time 1:04

Boom-format demo.
Recorded with PrBoom 2.02. Also plays back with Eternity 3.31 beta5, Prboom 2.2.4 and Prboom 2.3.0, and presumably Boom 2.02.
PrBoom download link: http://sourceforge.net/projects/prboom

NB: You'll need to add "-nomusic" to the command line to watch it with Prboom 2.02.

Quick description: I die after 9 seconds, and the boss brain dies nearly a minute later. Heh.

Description: I can't quite believe I've done it. While this is a very silly demo indeed, it was also an exceptionally difficult one. I had tried this for hours and hours and hours back in August 2003 (when I recorded a UV Speed and an NM Speed on this map). At that time I wrote: "I spent a while trying to do it Pacifist style (i.e. any NM Pacifist exit, not in 6 seconds!), but gave up after a while - the brain can take quite a lot of damage. I'm sure it's possible though: get the archies around the brain, and get the PE to spam lost souls around that area. Then run to the brain, get splatted by the archies (causing a fair degree of splash damage to the brain), and then (while lying dead on the floor) rely on the lost souls to piss the archies off enough that they blast them a few times in the vacinity of the brain. You can also hope that the brain takes a few hits while you're still alive - running along the outer walls seems to give you the best chance of staying alive for a while."

I recommend watching this demo with the walkcam in Eternity or else OnyxStar's version of Prboom 2.3.0 (he has added a walkcam). Otherwise, it won't make a great deal of sense. Anyway, the mechanism is somewhat different from what I envisaged last year. I manage to get two archies to blast me while I am next to the boss brain, which gets things off to a good start. At the moment I die, there is a homing revenant missile following me. Since I am dead at that point, it stops tracking me, and carries on straight ahead, and hits the pain elemental. Fortunately the revenant is just the other side of the boss brain from it, and so the lost souls it spits out in retaliation hit the boss brain before they reach their target. Of course, things get a bit messy with lots of lost souls piling up, but the pain elemental moves around enough to keep things going. The revenant never has any cause to fire back or move, and none of the other monsters interfere because they have been distracted or are dormant. The lost-soul limit is never an issue either, since the arachnotron and archies did a very efficient job of clearing up a lot of the skull released early on.

Well, there we are. I am not sure whether to be ashamed of this or proud of it. :p

Graham "Grazza" Burgess
GKBurgess@compuserve.com
