Arcadia Demade

Arcadia Demade | ARCADIA.WAD

     Jean-Paul LeBreton

Nobody but the most out of touch or intellectually dishonest would ever confuse Doom for BioShock. Aside from the nearly fifteen-year difference in release dates, they have very different aesthetics, priorities and gameplay. But as the old saying goes, "design is law." First person shooters, whatever they may be like in terms of gameplay, live and die on their level design; the earliest games provoked discussion about realism and the value of 3D space for immersion. While those conversations look silly now in the face of abstract mazes like Wolfenstein 3D's, it nevertheless remains true that level design is important. But does it always translate from one idiom to another? It's one thing to convert Doom to another game — how many E1M1 remakes are out there? But it's quite another to convert a much more modern game into Doom. Jean-Paul LeBreton, formerly of Irrational Games, did just that, recreating the Arcadia and Farmer's Market zones from BioShock into Doom. And who better to do it the lead designer on those levels?

If you've never played BioShock, that's okay: you don't really need to, to enjoy this map. But having knowledge of the original Arcadia would both prove useful in navigating the map while also adding an extra layer as you recognize, though greatly simplified, the bones of the original level. I'll spare you the details about BioShock — you can just read my review of that to get caught up. 

Done? Okay, let's continue. As LeBreton explains in his commentary, Arcadia was designed as Rapture's breadbasket and lungs. A city of 20,000 people at the bottom of the ocean is going to need a lot of food and oxygen, and Arcadia was intended to satisfy both. (Scientifically speaking, you'd need around 80,000 trees minimum to satisfy everyone's oxygen needs; we must therefore assume that Rapture, being a haven for scientific progress, would have found other ways to generate oxygen.) Arcadia also serves as a park, farmland and cemetery; nearby is the Farmer's Market, a semi-"open-air" commercial area where farm products are sold directly to consumers. The whole thing is essentially analogous to the Hydroponics Deck of System Shock 2, BioShock's spiritual forebear.

With that context in mind, let's begin. Arcadia Demade, or just Arcadia, is a single-level wad for Doom II running on any limit-removing source port. It boasts no new assets save for a new MIDI, a new sky texture, and a new palette that leans heavily on the blues. It's a sprawling thing, comprised of recreations of both Arcadia and Farmer's Market, with alterations made to fit the design within the game's constraints. This means there's no room-over-room; indeed, instead of bridges, we get (rather slow-moving) lifts that rise or fall depending on where the player is. Aesthetically, the map leans much more towards Doom, with its use of stock textures. It gives the sense, perhaps, of a demon-haunted agricultural laboratory. Somehow it works.

What's more interesting to me, however, is LeBreton's choice of how to translate the enemies. Leadhead splicers become imps and zombies; turrets become chaingunners. Clever use of teleport lines turn Houdini splicers (who first appear in Arcadia) into revenants that zap around; this is particularly effective early in the map for a recreation of your first encounter with a Houdini. And of course, where's the Big Daddy? It's a very angry Cyberdemon, stomping around in the courtyard at the Farmer's Market after you've gotten the blue key.

The usual mod disclaimer: This was played in Nugget Doom. I used Skelegant's excellent One Hell of A Marine mod complete with Gorenuggets, and Craneo's Milguy reskin. I just really like that reskin.

Ultimately, I think LeBreton did a decent job in translating his original levels into Doom. Having some foreknowledge certainly doesn't hurt (especially for finding secrets) but the level nevertheless plays pretty well. You start in the same place you do in BioShock: in a hidden tunnel that leads to a cemetery. As in BioShock, the level is pretty quiet right now, at least until you run into your first revenant. There's plenty of revenants, pinkies and other bad guys here, but if you know where to find the little cubbyholes it's not so bad. The real struggle is ammunition, as it's plenty light on UltraViolence, forcing you to juggle between weapons. 

LeBreton manages to emulate the flow of events from the original game as well. Some passages are blocked by stones with vines on them; as you reach the level's exit, the final door is barred and the stones lower, mimicking the withering away of the foliage that blocked those entries in BioShock. So your next task is to track down the blue key. With the yellow key you get in a facsimile of Julie Langford's lab, you can now access the Farmer's Market. It's around this point that LeBreton starts letting in pain elementals, which serve as the Doom equivalent to those splicers who have their own personal flying security bots.

The Farmer's Market section is just crawling with enemy; there are no bees in Doom, so instead the apiary is lined with damaging floors. The winery boasts an absolutely sprawling basement, true to the source material, and it serves as the final area you must explore before you can leave. It's dark as a dungeon down there, with lots of imps, revenants and arachnotrons to give you a headache. The little shanty someone built down there is recreated in full in Doom, complete with monsters ambushing you as you enter it. On your way back to the lab, you'll face the level's boss, the cyberdemon, though much like Big Daddies, fighting him is optional.

Arcadia Demade is really interesting in the way that it fairly successfully translates the basic flow and structure of the BioShock level into a straightforward Doom map. There are no special tricks, no scripting; it's as pure as Doom gets. I don't know if this says something about BioShock's design or Doom's; nevertheless, it's a great map, whether you like BioShock or not. 

-june❤