So what exactly makes Misri Halek, well, Misri Halek? (...beyond the obvious, obviously)

[dac]

This is a thought that's been bouncing around my brain for a while after replaying Alien Vendetta with the MIDI pack this year. The map doesn't need any introduction: it was declared "most memorable map of all time", it stands out even among a very good mapset, and even replaying it in 2022 I felt it mostly stood up to the test of time. Sure, now there's maps that are bigger, better, more impressive, push the envelope even further, and so on, but I enjoyed the map still, and honestly enjoyed it more than when I last played it. A bit more perspective will do that.

 

And that's where my inquiry came in: The map is big, yes. The map has an unique aesthetic, yes. It's the one map with original music in Alien Vendetta, yes. But that can't just be it, the map wouldn't be fondly remembered if playing it was a miserable endeavour. Beyond all of that, beyond also saying the map's good, what makes Misri Halek so special?

 

I have a few conclusions of my own, mostly about pacing and balancing the feel of a labyrinthine tomb with a progression where it's not easy to truly get lost in - a map that could have easily been an exercise in frustration but wasn't. But I'm just one guy, the map has existed for twenty years, and surely there's people in the community who have thought about this for way longer than I did and have a whole essay in their head ready to go. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

[LadyMistDragon]

That one scene that you see in the end screen is quite iconic. It's some incredibly gorgeous use of vanilla textures but in truth, I'm not really so sure. Granted, I think it's overrated anyway. I do really like how you go into a lava pit for while because a bridge is broken and you then end up clmibing a mountain. There are maps since then that improved on the Misri Halek form (if such a thing exists). But yeah, progression is really quite linear and with the exception of one switch hidden in the dark in the beginning tomb that opens the way to the exit, it's fairly easy to find your way around. It does sort of sacrifice a certain amount of mystery in that regard, but on the plus side, you'll rarely get lost.

 

And honestly, I do think the music is very much a part of why it's remembered so fondly. "Plasma" from Map 10 would've worked almost as well, but "Fight the Logic" has a simple, yet strangely profound moodiness that really adds to the lost civilization feel of the map.

[Somniac]

This map (and AV as a whole) are one of those things where contextually, it's probably a bit of a "sacred cow" for some people, especially those who have been around long enough. There's a mythos around it now, which no doubt has been especially reinforced by Not Jabba's fantastic roots of mapping piece and the praise deservedly heaped upon the megaWAD there. 

 

I still remember my first time round with AV and how MAP20 was arguably the most "wow" map of the set. Map design, gameplay and atmosphere coalesce in an especially potent way in this map. It just gets everything right at a grand scale without any hubris. It's the magnum opus in an already fantastically designed and influential mapset. If somebody asks me why I think Doom is art, I'd sit them down with Misri Halek and let it do the talking. 

[OniriA]

Beside the above mentioned, I think nowadays, the age of the map (and wad) itself is also a factor as it's now 20+ years old and it was one of the first

true immersive adventure style maps out there. The map itself has started to become ancient just like the theme it represents. 

 

The map in hindsight feels like a nexus of 2 ages, the wad was made at the end of and old and at the beginning of a new millenium.

During 1997 Hale Bopps Comet (also known as Dhundhar Sitara) was being sighted around the world, which has an orbital period of around 2520 years. The last time human eyes witnessed this Comet where the ancient Egyptians among others.

We were the last generation of our time (the 90's) to witness this phenomenon alive. Most likely the author of Misri Halek witnessed it too back then. 

 

The realization of having witnessed a rare global phenomenon at the same time feels like having a connection with someone even though you never knew or saw the person itself. We share the same timeline even though I was much younger at the time then him.

 

 

It also sort of set the precedent of alot of Map 20's in future megawads often being a large gigantic map aswell, at some point everyone wanted to have his own "Misri Halek" in the wad, becoming sort of a trope just like Map 07 "Dead Simple" and map 30 being an Icon of Sin.

 

The author of Misri Halek is no longer alive as I came to learn years ago during an Online Multiplayer session of the wad, but his spirit certainly lives on.

Edited July 1, 2022 by OniriA

[Deadwing]

It's really, really atmospheric, especially because of the music. The opening shot and the first few moments are great and it is really adventurous too, with the lava + mountain sections as LadyMistDragon mentioned. I didn't like it when I played it 3~5 years ago, especially due to the gameplay being kind of a slog, but this style was typical when it was released in 2001 and its strengths probably were a lot more impactful, contributing to the wow effect.

[Not Jabba]

Sense of wonder is definitely relative, and the map is a lot more important as context than it is when rated against other maps for quality. If you walked into a room and saw Misri Halek standing there, and standing on its right shoulder was The Mucus Flow, and on the shoulders of the Mucus Flow was Interstellar Sickness, and on the shoulders of Interstellar Sickness was Lullaby, and on the left shoulder was Deus Vult, and on the shoulders of Deus Vult was Sunder, and on the shoulders of Sunder was a whole other tower of stuff, you'd probably think that Misri Halek looked pretty short. And it is. For personal enjoyment, it *might* crack a list of my 100 favorite maps, and Alien Vendetta itself *might* be on a list of my 200 favorite WADs I've played, but I wouldn't bet on it. Still, to have been around and watched all those other WADs stack up on top of it, you kind of get an appreciation for how strong it must be to bear that weight -- and I'm sure if you were around when it was standing there by itself, it must have looked pretty tall.

 

This is how the history of art always works, and that's totally fine. I can understand why people might not think that highly of it today (even throughout the 2010s and as of 2018 when we were doing the Top 100 Memorable Maps, a lot of people thought it was overrated, which is referenced in the writeup). The fact that there is so much that's better than it is a great privilege -- and I'm grateful to Misri Halek for that, even though it's only one piece of the tower and even though if it hadn't existed, someone else would probably have done something similar pretty soon thereafter.

 

Still, I actually can't think of any map created before 2001 that was anywhere near as awe-inspiring. It's a well-paced, cinematic map with a lot of twists and turns. It has a lot of contrast in scale and lighting and action. It's got an eerie mood that has a lot to do with the setting, not just the music -- especially, the suggestion that the pyramid itself is ancient and is connected to mysteries that go beyond Doom's hell-invasion story (this in particular is something that's hard to see now, because so many people have done it since then). It does a lot of things really well, and taken on its own, it's still a pretty wondrous map that holds up fairly well.

Edited July 1, 2022 by Not Jabba

[Captain POLAND]

It's a great map, but I prefer the more slaughtery maps in the WAD.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

For those who didn't play it until 10+ years after release, its reputation makes it what it is, at least to an extent. If it wasn't such a popular map, people wouldn't analyze it so much, and that can be said for art in general. Misri Halek is great, don't get me wrong, but with anything this popular you're going to have people who feel the need to compliment it just because they're supposed to. Just like you're going to have people who say it sucks just because they want to go against the grain.

Edited July 2, 2022 by TheMagicMushroomMan

[dac]

4 hours ago, Not Jabba said:

Still, I actually can't think of any map created before 2001 that was anywhere near as awe-inspiring. It's a well-paced, cinematic map with a lot of twists and turns. It has a lot of contrast in scale and lighting and action. It's got an eerie mood that has a lot to do with the setting, not just the music -- especially, the suggestion that the pyramid itself is ancient and is connected to mysteries that go beyond Doom's hell-invasion story (this in particular is something that's hard to see now, because so many people have done it since then). It does a lot of things really well, and taken on its own, it's still a pretty wondrous map that holds up fairly well.

 

Pacing in general is something I think of often with maps (and megawads themselves but that's outside the scope of this discussion), and especially so with maps as adventurous as Misri Halek and their ilk where not having a right flow can easily take me out of the map before I real the halfway point. This is something MAP19 of Eviternity did very poorly, it's something Jade Earth did well mostly on a combat level, and it's something Misri Halek does well even 20 years later, albeit more with its setting. The parts of the map sending you through lava caverns or even the cliff region that had to be cut for demos at the time are important here to break the monotony of closed off egyptian tombs, as well as truly reminding how ancient the place is, that it was built on and then eaten by its environment.

 

And as you said, the map has a lot of twists and turns, because it fits the setting and because vanilla limits at the time were still something to keep in mind. The map is also, for lack of a better term, easy to navigate, meaning it's hard to be left scouring the entire place going WHERE DO I GOOOOOO and feeling the frustration mount further and further. To me, this is the heart of Misri Halek, this balancing act of feeling like an ancient egyptian tomb with its turns, its sprawling underground, its unintended detours made by time, so much that it feels like a place and not an abstraction; and on the other scale that it is well structured from a pure game design standpoint, where progression is almost always clear and the bits of backtracking you do inevitably leads you to well signposted new openings. It would have been insanely easy to screw up this balance one way or the other, and Malde made it work here.

 

Also to end this on a lighter note: For a map set in a pyramid and its catacombs underground, a map as big as it is, I always found it funny the map only has one secret. And in the lava parts too, not the tomb itself!

[resle]

Ha, such timing. I just went through it for the first time.

There is indeed something special about it.

 

The best way I can put it is: it made me feel even more alone / isolated than how I originally felt back in 1993 playing E1M1.

[Anarkzie]

I think it largely comes down to the midi and the excellent use of lighting. Light and sound are two elements that build atmosphere which I think are this levels strong point. 

[Andy Johnsen]

Without proper context it would be hard to understand why it's still being discussed and talked about, and understandably so. 

Misri Halek released today would not be the same as back in 2001. We still had very few grandiose port based maps to compete with at the time, and one have to realize this was designed with the original Doom2 executable in mind, with archaic editors, and all the limitations such entailed.

Misri Halek is definitely not without flaws, yet regardless offers grand adventure - and when it was released it truly was unique in size and sense of location. From a design perspective it's certainly an impressive feat given the tools of the time. The amount of hours Malde put into it is substantial. Most of the map was slowly designed in my old apartment, so I got to witness the grind first hand (and of course mandatorily poked him every time a smoke break prolonged the process even more, heh).

Breaking the claustrophobia of the beautiful lit hallways and hell caverns with a grandiose mountain climb was a stroke of genius in my opinion. Having the player start outside the starlit pyramide is also an important visual storytelling point here, there's an instant recognizable location, a true sense of place. Much of the light effects that paint the hallways still look gorgeous today.

Retrospectively I should have convinced him to not do the switch hunt sequences near the end of the map though, I didn't agree with the intricacy of that back then and obviously the map would be more accessible for more players without it. One should also keep in mind that the gameplay here was done by me after the design was completed, it didn't leave room for too many varied setups - hence the slight "Hell Knight in a hallway" overkill. Malde was more a storyteller than a gameplay enthusiast.

Chris' midi was the perfect storm for this map, no doubt about it. As a sidenote I stumbled upon this remaster by Ramón Portugal Córdova the other day, and it sounds great;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhuRO3HhC6I&ab_channel=Ramón

Edited July 5, 2022 by Andy Johnsen

[zokum]

1 hour ago, Andy Johnsen said:

Misri Halek released today would not be the same as back in 2001. We still had very few grandiose port based maps to compete with at the time, and one have to realize this was designed with the original Doom2 executable in mind, with archaic editors, and all the limitations such entailed.

For me, it brings back memories of Kim sitting in his own world, working hard on that map. I remember that apartment well, we had a lot of good times there, and some burnt pizza... I remember the time our bbq set fire to the wooden patio. For me, Misri Halek is all of that and much more. The map had a combination of several things that made it stand out, and it was in a map set full of high quality maps. It's a gem wrapped in gold. Released as a single map, it would probably not have been remembered as fondly.

[Azure_Horror]

Misri Halek is a very special map indeed. I think there are quite a few objective reasons for this.

 

But before I begin to describe those factors I must make a confession:

Misri Halek gameplay is not that fun for me. I prefer Eviternity approach to big adventure maps (Anagnorisis, Elysium, Cryonology, Imperator, even Dehydration.)

 

Ok, now back to the topic at hand. What makes AV map20 so special?

 

1) The scale and the detailing of Misri Halek are superb, even in the current decade. And that’s not all – the map works under vanilla limits!

Let’s imagine for a moment that Misri Halek was realesed not in 2001 but in 2021. What would doomers say in this hypothetical timeline? I think that quite a few doomers would say: «Wow, Kim Andre Malde managed to squeeze a Lost Civilisation map into Doom2.exe limits! I didn’t think that such mapping achievement is even possible!».

 

2) Obviously, the map has very unique setting. In fact, the map has at least four distinct settings:

Setting 1 – Egyptian catacombs. Egyptian theme is somewhat rare for Doom map. Good Doom catacomb maps are even rarer, funnily enough. Doom maps often have Caves, Fortresses, or Technological corridors. But all those things are not exactly catacombs.

Setting 2 – Red hellish lava caves. This is a pretty standard element of Doom maps. Yet, Misri Halek red lava caves are one of the most well-crafted red lava caves out there!

Setting 3 – Rock tunnels with ruins and lava. Another staple of doom mapping. Misri Halek version is good, but not super impressive, unlike the red hellish caves.

Setting 4 – The climb in the lava canyon. This is a very unique setting. Doom always had lava, but natural-looking volcanic levels are very rare. On top of my head, I can remember only Misri Halek, map 32 from Uprising, and some maps from 1000 lines community project 3. Volcanic canyon is already unique. Add to that the mountain climb, which is even rarer in doom maps – and you get a truly one of the kind type of a setting!

Don’t forget that Misri Halek mixes and matches those four different settings very organically!

 

3) Gameplay. Like I said, I am not a big fan of Misri Halek gameplay. Nevertheless, I can clearly see that this gameplay is pretty unique and special:

- Typically, Doom gameplay is designed either around combat, or around a set of locations. But Misri Halek gameply is designed around one big journey.

- The combat can be grindy and/or upredictable, but is almost always engaging.

- You never know, what to expect. Maybe it is another bunch of cacos, maybe it is a treasure, maybe it is a puzzle, or maybe it is a cyberdemon. This «never know what’s behind the next corner» feeling hits the player right into good old Doom1 nostalgia.

 

In conclusion, Misri Halek has quite a lot of special traits, even in the year 2022. And the whole combination of those special traits is also unique!

[DuckReconMajor]

I can't manage to come up with anything other than cliches about 'atmosphere' and 'sense of place'. It just sort of grabbed me and I had to know what else was in this crumbly pyramid.

I didn't play it until almost a decade after it came out. But at that time I hadn't come across anything like it.

The music is of course fantastic but I think it's far from the only factor.

 

To me Alien Vendetta is like the Beatles. The height of their popularity is long gone but for decades after and even today, people hear the songs for the first time and become music fans and musicians. If it's not the Beatles themselves it's a band who was highly influenced by them.

Everyone else who doesn't have that experience doesn't get it and thus come the cries of "overrated". Which are somewhat justified but there's still some impalpable quality that still appeals to many people

[garudave]

The slow burn pacing and the flow of the action make Misri Halek special in my mind.  I've always preferred Toxic Touch personally but they both have this sort of continuous simmer that makes them unique.  Engaging action without the bombast you see in a lot of memorable maps that have come out since their time.

[RHhe82]

I’ve been playing AV on a slow pace for a couple of months, today I played Misri Halek.

 

So far AV has been a good wad, it doesn’t feel that outdated to me, except perhaps maps like MAP11. Misri Halek might have some less than desirable elements, like some the cyberdemon encounters, lots of busywork, progression gets a bit obtuse near the end when you reach the top landing… but it is evident Misri Halek is the most special and memorable map of the set so far, and in a positive way. From today’s point of view, it’s easy to imagine how the map must have been received back in the day.

 

I’ve also been using the new soundtrack. I understood that Misri Halek theme is the one song left intact. No wonder why, it’s really good and fitting.

[Hebonky]

I believe the map's legacy proceeds it. The fact that the midi is original, the fact that it's has a different style to everything else to that point, and the details play a part, however if you look at those reasons only at face value then you don't get the full picture. To get the full picture you have to look into the background. You have to understand that every piece of work that Kim Andre Malde worked on had a bit of his soul in it. It's not just a map but it's also somewhat of an art project. If he wanted to make a map that was combat focused then the intricate detail and complexity would've suffered. The map perfectly captures the feeling of trekking into a forgotten tomb, full of traps and secrets. Misri Halek is built in way that if a single line is off the whole map would fall apart. If it were too claustrophobic then it would've been an unfun slog, if it was too open then it wouldn't feel like a tomb. On top of the preceding reasons there also is the fact that if the midi was any different the map would suffer, this is why when the AV midi pack came out "Fight the Logic if You Can" was just remastered. 

 

Everything everywhere all at once. Exactly where it should. Exactly how it should.

[Lucius Wooding]

 

Been watching this guy's stuff a bit lately, he does a nice commentated playthrough and just uploaded this the other day so I figured I'd post it since his channel is fairly small. Good showcase of the map as well even though he does a bit of backtracking. 

 

As for my thoughts on the map, I think it's pound for pound one of the easier maps in the set, especially among the second half. Being easier than some of the excessive later maps in AV certainly made it more pleasant even though it's fairly long. I think would have lost nothing of its mystique from shaving off about 10 minutes of B roll fights. However I think our collective attention spans and tolerance towards maps have gotten shorter over almost 20 years.

 

It has the best aesthetics and the best MIDI in the WAD, and sticks to a very consistent visual theme with some of the best use of lighting from the era.  It's definitely exploration heavy which makes for getting lost and losing track of progression, though in a tightly connected map of this size it's difficult not to do that. It certainly seems like being lost is part of the intended experience and could add to the atmosphere of a map set in a labyrinthine tomb with traps and some incidental combat. Some people get really annoyed with being lost, so I can see how this isn't a universal favorite, let alone the best map of all time. I certainly think it's a good map, but I don't like AV for the most part and I'm spoiled by everything that's come since then. That said it's influential to a lot of what came after since it was an iconic mapping feat of its day.