Sewer Levels

[QuaketallicA]

No self-respecting first person shooter is complete without them. They're, of course, originally a staple of Hollywood. And why not? Sewers are a hostile environment. They're dark, dingy, grungy; they're claustrophobic and they reek, and you don't want to be caught down there longer than you have to. Of course, they always happen to be the residence of choice of something big, scary, and nasty. Zombies, mutants, giant rats, telekinetic apes named Grodd, crocodiles, etc. It's a horror movie that practically writes itself.

 

In Doom, the Doom II Map 05 instantly comes to mind, although half of Doom 1's color palette comes from the green nukage filled corridors and acid pits.

 

One of Plutonia Experiment's final levels is an excellent sewer level. Quake 1 and II have iconic ones, with the grenades to blow up the zombies that keep resurrecting in the former, and finding an alternate level entrance in the latter. Dark Forces has a famously confusing sewer level in map 3, with possibly the most complex puzzle to solve in the game, with those creatures from the Death Star trash compactor room everywhere.

 

Yet despite being the setting of so many memorable and iconic levels, and the perfect natural setting for a horror/action scene, there seems to be some sort of residual resentment or disdain online towards sewer levels from some people. Am I exaggerating the opinions of the exceptions? I don't understand the dislike.

 

What are your thoughts on them?

[ALilGrayBoi]

The sewer levels in doom get repetitive and barely resemble a sewer. And the doom stock graphics don’t build up atmosphere. Sewer levels can be done right but most of the time it’s just bland. 

[QuaketallicA]

Just now, ALilGrayBoi said:

The sewer levels in doom get repetitive and barely resemble a sewer. And the doom stock graphics don’t build up atmosphere. Sewer levels can be done right but most of the time it’s just bland. 

 

The one that's like Map 27 or 28 of Plutonia Experiment much more resembles a sewer than Doom II's. It even uses a cool trick in the vanilla engine where it creates the illusion of depth, by having the surface level of the nukage be higher up, but the floor that the player walks on is lower, so it looks like you're trudging through the sewage.

[ALilGrayBoi]

1 minute ago, QuaketallicA said:

 

The one that's like Map 27 or 28 of Plutonia Experiment much more resembles a sewer than Doom II's. It even uses a cool trick in the vanilla engine where it creates the illusion of depth, by having the surface level of the nukage be higher up, but the floor that the player walks on is lower, so it looks like you're trudging through the sewage.

Oh. I actually didn’t notice that effect. Maybe it’s cuz I played plutonia on my tiny iphone

[DNSKILL5]

I don’t mind sewer levels, though it’s nice when the map has some areas that allow you to get out of the sewer, even if momentarily. 

[QuaketallicA]

5 minutes ago, DNSKILL5 said:

I don’t mind sewer levels, though it’s nice when the map has some areas that allow you to get out of the sewer, even if momentarily. 

 

Like a good song, a good level always needs dynamics.

[Mystic 256]

They are alright

I wanna make a sewer level sometime

[A339]

1 hour ago, ALilGrayBoi said:

The sewer levels in doom get repetitive and barely resemble a sewer. And the doom stock graphics don’t build up atmosphere. Sewer levels can be done right but most of the time it’s just bland. 

 

Use Software mode.

[No-Man Baugh]

Where's my Doom in Sewer Only?

[LoatharMDPhD]

// I love watching this number get bigger...

[JoeyKelastiof]

Yea. btw You're right! the sewer level does look really good in Plutonia!  A bit off topic but I thought Plutonia was good at representing locations, most maps look clean in that matter.

Edited March 16, 2024 by JoeyKelastiof

[houston]

I'm willing to give some unique takes on sewers a chance, but in conventional games I've always found them too dark, steel-pipe-blasting-steamy, and water levelly. Some real innovation is going to have to be done with the visuals or soundscape to make a sewer level interesting to me.

 

Weird exception maybe, but I did like that one Quake map with all the air tunnels

[QuaketallicA]

1 hour ago, houston said:

I'm willing to give some unique takes on sewers a chance, but in conventional games I've always found them too dark, steel-pipe-blasting-steamy, and water levelly. Some real innovation is going to have to be done with the visuals or soundscape to make a sewer level interesting to me.

 

Weird exception maybe, but I did like that one Quake map with all the air tunnels

 

Yeah that was really cool. Was that Episode 3 or 4? One of those I think.

 

I mean, the fact that they're dark, industrial, and dank is exactly what makes them the perfect breeding ground for a scary setting that has you on edge. You can be easily ambushed by Spectres, and since it's close quarters, even regular shotgunners can be quite deadly if you're without armor. I get what you're saying though, perhaps you've seen enough of them that they become a little samey?

[houston]

Yeah, probably about right. This is probably the most visually, audibly, and mechanically unique sewer level I've seen, but to me it is still just so "Yeah, I get it already". It's probably more the mental association of sewers being unpleasant places that might make me never accept the theme.

[yakfak]

i like sending doom guys to unpleasant places honestly

i don't like his superhero cape i want him to tear it scraping his way between narrow pipes

sewers being a sort of anti-arena thing is interesting to me - no guarantee of space or clear progression. guess it's a really 90s way to layout a map but i like that, am kind of a student of it (and I think you can fail to make a sewer map even if you put nukage everywhere and use stone2 a lot - it's about submerging the player and making them struggle in a noncombat way, not about set dressing)

[heliumlamb]

very few have yet to be made aware of this astonishing Fact... here is the fact :  John "guy" Doom is mandated to pay respect to the mole people who live in our precious sewers. such facts of the life of John "guy"d oom Are best Not to Be "avoided"

[Stupid Bunny]

I posted a topic some months ago that got some interesting replies. I made the mistake of starting it with the presumption that sewer levels, by default, are bad; I maintain the common critiques of sewer levels aren’t unreasonable or entirely inaccurate but it’s quite possible that the trope is a product of selective memory more than empirical reality and starting yours with “are they actually bad?” was a more useful starting point.

 

 

[Xaser]

I'm boring and voted "ambivalent" because IMO there's nothing wrong with sewers as a concept -- it's a matter of execution, like everything else -- though it's certainly valid that following the theme exactly without doing any out of the box thinking will result in a pretty boring maze, which is why there's so many bad ones out there. ;)

 

The other thread (and this one too) have some great examples of well-executed sewer levels, but I also wanna give a shout to The Cistern from the first Tomb Raider:

 

 

Interesting design, revolving around a central chamber that's tricky to navigate with the water lowered, and the obligatory water-raising puzzle isn't brain-bustingly difficult. Good stuff.

 

That said, the map immediately following this one ("Tomb of Tihocan") continues the sewer theme but falls square in the "boring maze" category for its first half, so the game's got a duo of "good example, bad example" in a row. :P -- For Tomb Raider Anniversary they ended up cutting out the crappy part and merged the two levels into one, which was the right call for sure.

[VoanHead]

I think sewer levels are pretty shitty. I wouldn’t want to be doomguy in that situation and catching a whiff of that smell in there. But overall, I’m pretty indifferent to them. If a map is good regardless if it’s sewer themed, then it’s good.

[Ravendesk]

12 hours ago, houston said:

Yeah, probably about right. This is probably the most visually, audibly, and mechanically unique sewer level I've seen, but to me it is still just so "Yeah, I get it already". It's probably more the mental association of sewers being unpleasant places that might make me never accept the theme.

Those are like the best CB2 levels though.

[Sneezy McGlassFace]

It's really funny how common sewer levels are. I think (based on no evidence) that the theme is always on the designers' mind but they may not want to use the theme as long as there are more interesting choices. Grasslands, desert, forest, jungle, ice world, fire world, ... uh, sewer? 

Sewers as a theme are fine but they've been done a million times and it can be hard to make them feel unique from the get-go. So designers are putting them off until the stage of development where they need another theme but all the good ideas are already used, so they just go for a sewer, and it's bland, boring maze of lookalike tunnels just to pad the runtime. 

 

Thinking back of my favourite wads, there's a little sewer section in Jade Earth, a wad I love. But if that section was cut, nothing of value would be lost, in my opinion. Because making sewer is easy, making a unique and interesting sewer is hard. 

 

For a non-doom example, the sewer level in amnesia the dark descent is probably my favourite part of the game. Because to my memory, it doesn't fall back on the lazy tropes, there are new gameplay elements with the invisible monster, there's the guy you have to drown, it's unpleasant in a spectacular way. 

 

So I think that many sewer levels are just an unfortunate victims of stress, creative and time constraints of the devs. It could be warehouse or a spaceship just the same. There's a ton of boring af sci-fi or mine levels too. For the same reasons. Sewers have the potential to be great, they just pulled the short straw. 

Edited March 16, 2024 by Sneezy McGlassFace

[LadyMistDragon]

They CAN be good, but in certain games, they feel like padding and less like substance (Dark Forces for one) Else, you'll get something like that one map from Strife with the same stupid music that's heard in half a dozen other maps that's much, much too confusing. That's probably more selfindulgence than anything.

 

But the short answer is that I like sewer levels because of their potential for exploration. But I think that more could've been done to maintain interest. I can't really tell you what I thought of them in the day, just that the ones in Duke 3D and Doom (more the latter) were nice places to be in.

[Li'l devil]

I like sewer levels and I find them comfy, I guess because they're cramped and corridor-like most of the time. The first sewer level I played was in CoD1 and it was so comfy that I like them ever since. But not all of them. Postal 2 had a really uncomfy sewer level that I hated playing.

Edited March 17, 2024 by Li'l devil

[Maximum Matt]

10 hours ago, VoanHead said:

I think sewer levels are pretty shitty.

Heh