MAP08: Tricks and Traps (Doom II)

MAP08: Tricks and Traps is the eighth map of Doom II. It was designed by Sandy Petersen and uses the music track "The Dave D. Taylor Blues". This map introduces a new enemy, the Pain Elemental, who looks very similar to the Cacodemon. The Cyberdemon makes his first return here.

Difficulty: Hard

Walkthrough
This level starts in an octagonal room with 8 doors, each on the respecitve cardinal and colateral directions of the room. First, go through the south door and you'll be in a room with many barons of hell and a cyberdemon (A). Once the Cyberdemon sees you, he'll start firing, hitting the Barons (who at first don't see you until you decide to attack), who will fight back. While they're fighting, pick up the soul sphere here (B). If all the Barons between you and the Cyberdemon have been killed, move in front of another batch so the rockets hit them instead of you, and the fighting should continue until the Cyberdemon is killed. Once the Cyberdemon is dead or there are too few Barons left to kill him, pick up the invulnerability sphere nearby and kill the remaining enemies. Once the coast is clear, drop down to where the Cyberdemon originally was and pick up the yellow skull key (C), flipping the switch behind it in order to get back to the starting area (D). Be careful upon re-entering the center room, as some barons may have accidentally teleported from the previous room.

Back in the center room, open the yellow (northwest) door and follow the path along until you reach the red skull key (E). The floor behind you will have sunk into a pit of sludge, keeping you from returning to the starting room. Arm yourself with your most powerful weapon and back into the alcove where the red skull key lies and pick it up. Once you do, the walls start lowering, unleashing a slew of enemies (F). Clear a path to the northeast corner of this room and pick up another invulnerability sphere. Clear out the rest of the enemies and flip the switch in the northwest corner of the room to raise the bridge to the center room again (G).

At this point you can exit, although much of the level remains unexplored (and is completely optional). Check the secrets section below for descriptions of the optional areas. Once you're ready to exit, open the red (west) door in the center room (H). You may want to save here, as the next obstacle is easy to mess up, resulting in inescapable death. In order to reach the exit door, you must run across the platforms floating in the sludge. Once you step on one (I), however, it begins sinking, so speed is essential. Once you've successfully reached the other side, open the exit door, kill the demon, and flip the switch.

Official

 * 1) Through the southwest door in the starting room is a long hallway with a chainsaw (not on easy skill) at the end. When you approach the hallway's end, its back wall opens to a secret room (J).
 * 2) This one is a bit involved. First, flip the switch at the far end of the Cacodemon (north door) room (K). Next, return to the starting room and enter the northeast door. The northern wall of this room has three alcoves in it. Enter any of them to cause a staircase to rise on the other side of the room. Hit the western switch at the top of the stairs to open a secret passage back in the center alcove (L).
 * 3) On approaching the soul sphere in secret #2, the diamond-shaped room adjacent to it will open up even larger, releasing several enemies. After dealing with the enemies, shoot the marble demon face wall to reveal a BFG9000 (M).
 * 4) Through the east door in the starting room is a small room with a lion-faced wall and two teleports on either side. Shoot the lion face to access a third teleport taking you to a secret platform in a new area (N).
 * 5) After passing through any of the two side teleports (not the secret one behind the lion-face switch described right above) from the east room, you'll be taken to an isolated area. There is a pillar with two gargoyle heads in the center of this room. Shoot the northern face of the pillar to open an alcove in the southern end of the room (O).
 * 6) Same as #5, but shoot the southern face to open an area in the northern end of the room. Be careful, as both of these secrets will reveal pain elementals in addition to the secrets (P).
 * 7) In the same isolated room as secrets #4, #5 and #6, drop down into the brown sludge pit and open the red wall on its northern end to access a small system of slime tunnels (Q). Pick up the goodies inside the tunnels then take the teleport back to the room. This will put you inside the teleport with the ammo pack that was inaccessible before. You can now grab the ammo pack.

Non-official
The two "secrets" mentioned below exist mostly for compatibility in multiplayer.


 * 1) When walking into the east (requiring the red key) room, a teleporter will open to the left just inside the Cacodemon (north) room. This teleporter leads to the exit at the end of the red key room and presumably is there in case a player dies before hitting the switch to raise the floor after it lowers.
 * 2) Simply entering the corridor leading to the exit will open a teleporter opposite to the one mentioned above, which will lead directly to the exit room.

Bugs

 * 1) Not a "bug", but a fairly large visual oversight. The lower texture on one side of one of the raising stairs (Linedef 232) in the Demon/Rocket Launcher room has a notably incorrect texture (BROWNHUG instead of STEP2).
 * 2) A similar texture mistake seems to be present on one of the walls just inside the Yellow Key Door (Linedef 598), where a single wall is textured in STONE2 instead of GRAY5.
 * 3) A large HOM can be seen right behind the door leading to the chainsaw containing corridor; the result of the upper texture on linedef 101 being applied to the wrong side.

Routes and tricks
This is a good way for speedrunning: grab the yellow key, go through the yellow door to grab the red key, and then go directly to the exit. However, it can take longer than the par time due to 20 Barons of Hell (18 on HMP (and 17 on ITYTD and HNTR)) + a Cyberdemon guarding the yellow key.

Records
The Compet-N records for the map are:

Trivia
The music in this level is inspired by "Hold Your Head Up" by Argent.