13 Brain Damage

Tips and Secrets

You start the level in a courtyard/pool area with a stream to your right, and hedges to the north and west. There is not much to do in this area but survive to find the gate to the north, which leads directly to a series of buildings which ring a central area separated by moats. The basic thrust of the map is to gain access to four towers, each of which allows you to fill a moat. You can then reach the next part of the map by swimming through the filled moats. For the nimble of foot, you can reach each part of the map without moat flooding, but I prevented that sort of "cheating" by also locking the doors that lead to each section until the appropriate moat is flooded.

Tower 1: the entrance to the first tower is blocked by a board. To raise the board, head up the stairs, and head north, west, and south to enter a large study room. A small room in the back of the study has the switch that will allow access to the switch that controls the board blocking the tower. There is a save terminal which appears momentarily on a wall in this area. Head back around, and go to the newly opened switch area, and raise the board blocking the tower stairs. Before you leave this area, go back to the north hallway and open a door you will see to your right. There is a switch in there that will open a door to the next part of the map... miss it, and you will end up retracing your steps.

Head back down stairs, and go up to the tower room. There is a switch on the tower wall facing out into the moat area that will drain the water well into the first moat. There is also a door on the west side of the tower leading to a room that holds a key that will open the door to the moat area. Head back down stairs and open the door in the south east corner of the main floor room with your key. Once outside, you can access the moat, which will allow you to swim over to reach the next part of the map.

Tower 2: You will enter a large hall area. Head up the stairs to your left, and you will come to a part of a hallway that branches to the west and north. Head down the west branch to enter a room with blue chairs, and a table with a key on it. The key will allow you to gain access to an exit from the second tower, but is not 100% crucial to solving this part of the map -- if you skip the key you can still get out of the second tower area the way you came in. Return to the branch in the hallway, and head north to go up the stairs to the second tower. There you can flood the second moat, and then take the eastward stairs, and use your key to exit this part of the map.

Tower 3: Swim into the first moat, up the stairs, and down into the second moat to enter the area of the third tower. This is where the map starts to get tricky. There is a secret room here -- to the west of the third tower you will see a closed door that looks very similar to all the other closed doors. The trigger that opens this door is in the corner next to the open door that leads to the third tower puzzle. If you stand next to the open door, step backwards into the corner, and then side-step run around the tower and into the open door, you will just be able to make it in. There is a secret panel on the left side of the room you enter, and in there you will find some goodies. You can then open the door to the secret room by walking on the floor... the door should trigger open briefly, where you can return to the tower 3 door.

Inside the tower 3 door is an area lit by lamps... it looks a bit like a chapel. Head to the eastward end of the chapel, and you should be able to see a key in a small room beyond the wall. Remember this key! Facing back into the chapel, look to the left along the pillars... you will see a switch on the backside of a pillar on the left side. This switch will open a door in the wall on the right side of the chapel which leads to the third tower.

Head up the stairs, through a small room, and up the stairs to the third tower, which will be blocked by two bars. When you touch the top of the stairs, you trigger a wall to open in the room below... this room has a save terminal on the wall, and a door that leads to a well of water. Jump into the well, and swim down, and to your left, until you reach a small window and a switch. Punch the switch to smash it, and looking through the window you will see the bars descend. Swim back up the well, go up the stairs to the tower, and flood the third moat.

Tower 4: Swim through the 2nd moat, up the central stairs, and back down into the freshly flooded 3rd moat, and then up to reach the fourth tower area door. This leads into a large room dominated by two pillars. A set of stairs leads up to the forth tower door which is locked and needs a key. Remember the key you saw through the window in the chapel? Head down the stairs, around to your left, down the hallways (there is a room with a save terminal here along the way) until you reach a room at the end with a switch. Flip the switch, and then head into the hallway, and tab the wall there.. you should now be looking at the key... and see that the opening that blocked your access to it from the chapel is now open... that's right, you have to backtrack into the third tower chapel area to grab the key before you can gain entry to the fourth tower.

Once you have the key, head up the stairs to the fourth tower, and open the door. Once you are in there, you can flood the fourth moat, and gain access to the exit area of this map.

Exit Area: Swim down the third moat, and up the central steps, and down into the fourth moat area, and then up to the large exit doors. Open this, and you will enter a dark area with lots of ammo and powerups. Step around, and open either of the doors you see on the other side. Several doors will open at once... you will have a bit of shooting and killing to do, but if you saved your goodie from the secret area you will have no problems burning your way through the crowd.

Head north to find a pool area. There is a book/terminal here which explains that the manuscript that was supposed to be housed in this level was stolen. There are two exits here. The main exit is in the pool itself... jump in, hit the switch, and the exit will open underwater. This exit will lead directly to the next "main" Tempus level, Gauntlet. However, for a bit of fun, jump back out of the water, and head to the north area of the pool. You will find a switch there that will open a second exit on the west side of the pool area. This leads to one of Tempus' many secret levels, Towel Boy. Don't miss it!

Map Making Notes

The central area of the map was also very hard to construct without getting a "too many lines" error or just plain outright crashing in Forge. Like Downward Spiral, this level pushes the Marathon engine as hard as it can go without breaking. Have a look out of the west or east tower windows.. much of this map will be visible from there.

The original plan for this map was to include a largish underwater maze the player would have to traverse in order to lower the bars blocking the fourth tower, and would have necessitated a bit of back-tracking through the other moats. This was removed after comments from the testers that it was a bit on the sucky side. The monsters in the exit area were toughened up a few times, and ammo removed at the behest of the rest of the Nardo team. This is one of those times where you are glad, as a map maker, to have the valuable input of the rest of a team of respected peers... you can get blind to trouble areas in your maps without this kind of feedback.

Overall, this was the hardest one of my maps to construct... it gave me the most problems of any map in this scenario. Every new area presented a new problem in pushing the Marathon engine to the edge.