=========================================================================== Advanced engine needed : Boom-compatible (-cl 9) Primary purpose : Single Player =========================================================================== Title : Hardfest 2 Filename : hardfest2.wad Release date : 14/10/2023 Author : Various Email Address : [redacted] Other Files By Author : Probably some maps I'd assume :P Description : Are you sick and tired of not having the shit kicked out of you when playing doom? Try Hardfest 2 today! It's apparently quite good! Featuring 40 maps by 24 designers in a variety of styles, there's surely something for even the most picky of doom enthusiast here! Unless you only like boring maps. Have a look somewhere else for that. Additional Credits to : PROJECT LEAD: finnks13 MAPPERS: akolai Astro X Cannonball CblBOPOTKA CittyKat112 Dan dashlet el inferno finnks13 Knifeworld LPad Maribo Nefelibeta Ravendesk rd Red Boule RockyGaming4725 Scorpius svar taviow Thelokk whybmonotacrab Worriedidiot Yumheart TEXTURES: The cool CC4-tex list: NiGHTMARE Espi Eriance Fredrik Johansson Janitor DaGGeR Ola Bjorling Vader XDelusion esselfortium RottKing Nuxius Afterglow AgentSpork RottKing Enjay Huy Pham SargeBaldy Tormentor667 The GothicDM Team The Requiem Team The Eternal Doom Team id Software Raven Software Rogue Entertainment Additional Skies by Mechadon, Eradrop and from TNT:Evilution Assorted textures by Jimmy Magnolia textures by FuzzballFox and 40oz Assorted textures from OTEX by ukiro Moon textures by skillsaw Band Posters by Tropical Fuck Storm & Idles Assorted textures from DBP11, DIY, Lost Civilization, Deus Vult II SPRITES: Darker Chaingun by Arsinikk Dark BFG by Yugiboy85 from Occula, small edits by gabirupee & finnks13 Black Gloves for weapons by Grimm and MrFireSeth Infinite Rocket Launcher from Doom 64 Green Cyberdemons from Finely Crafted Fetish Film Arachnorb by Jimmy & Yurithehairfan SOUNDS: Arachnorb SFX by Jimmy, id Software & 3D Realms Plasma gun SFX from NoSp3 GRAPHICS: M_DOOM by Korp TITLEPIC by Christophine Place MUSIC: Korp LPad Ravendesk thelokk Scorpius ZDaemon CTF III (MAP28) Fortress 2 Blue (MAP32) zan-zan-zawa-veia (MAP34) Jimmy (MAP39) PLAYTESTING: BDubzzz besus bofu brendondle CittyKat112 DmitryExhale el inferno finnks13 Insane_Gazebo JoeSchmoe Knifeworld LadyMistDragon NinthBurn Maribo Scotty Starduster Ravendesk ScrappyMcDoogerton thelokk =========================================================================== * What is included * New levels : 40 (+1 credits map) Sounds : Yes Music : Yes Graphics : Yes Dehacked/BEX Patch : Yes Demos : No * Play Information * Game : DOOM2 Map # : Map01 - 41 Single Player : Designed for Cooperative 2-4 Player : No Deathmatch 2-4 Player : No Other game styles : No Difficulty Settings : Yes * Construction * Base : New from scratch Build Time : Just over six months Editor(s) used : Ultimate Doom Builder, Doom Builder X, Slade3, paint.net, DoomWriter Known Bugs : None, I hope :P May Not Run With : Non Boom-compatible ports Tested With : DSDA-Doom v0.26.2, Woof v0.11.40 =========================================================================== * Copyright / Permissions * Authors MAY use the contents of this file as a base for modification or reuse. Permissions have been obtained from original authors for any of their resources modified or included in this file. You MAY distribute this file, provided you include this text file, with no modifications. You may distribute this file in any electronic format (BBS, Diskette, CD, etc) as long as you include this file intact. I have received permission from the original authors of any modified or included content in this file to allow further distribution. * Where to get the file that this text file describes * The Usual: ftp://archives.gamers.org/pub/idgames/ and mirrors =========================================================================== =========================================================================== ////////////////////////// ////// MAP LIST ////// ////////////////////////// =========================================================================== MAP01 - Nihil Author - Worriedidiot Music - "Tar Puddle" by Korp Comments - This map was basically an excuse to use some weird skies I made and experiment with voodoo doll magic. Lots of black, white and gray and a pretty mehhh level of difficulty. I made the starting room a long while ago but reused it for this. I wasn't expecting for this map to end up as a MAP01 but that's how it went I guess. Also I'm sorry if the last room makes your game lag :p ~~~ MAP02 - Alone In The Town Author - dashlet Music - "Lamppost" by LPad Comments - This map originally belonged to Liminal Doom but it got scrapped early on during development. Since I had the layout laying around on my pc, i decided to use it for this project. Even though the original concept its lost, some parts of the maps still retain the Ldoom aesthetics in some way. The sniper cyberdemon it's the core of the map, and all the areas were build with him in mind. ~~~ MAP03 - In Your Time of Dying Author - Yumheart Music - "Hell is Purple Skittles" by thelokk Comments - Originally a speedmap that I ended up not being able to finish in the suggested time limit. I still liked the layout so I expanded the map and repurposed it for Hardfest 2, since I figured some slaughter-light would work well for an early map. I'm also aware y'all appreciate a short map ever so often. The lack of custom monsters is not due to me forgetting about them, they just didn't seem to fit into anywhere. ~~~ MAP04 - The Root of All Evil Author - Scorpius Music - "Dwarves Down Under, Elves On Top" by thelokk Comments - A dark cavern map inspired by The Living End and The Mortal Coil. Variety was a key priority when making this level to ensure that every location is unique and, one by one, more challenging in a specific way. I, also, tried to make use of a steady progression in terms of enemies and weapons usage across the map to ensure that the set pieces are "too easy" or "too hard." ~~~ MAP05 - Sacrifice Under Blacklight Author - Red Boule Music - "Blackout" by Scorpius ~~~ MAP06 - Sunlit Massacre Author - svar Music - "Martian Goat" by LPad ~~~ MAP07 - 3 Different Ways to Die Author - CittyKat112 Music - "Rust and Dust" by Korp ~~~ MAP08 - Amber Facility Author - Red Boule Music - "Lightning Jester" by LPad ~~~ MAP09 - The House Entrails Author - dashlet Music - "Void Maps Quota Has Been Reached" by thelokk ~~~ MAP10 - CUBEMEAT FLESH-MOTHER NG++ Author - Worriedidiot Music - "Cambur Bandit" by Korp & LPad ~~~ MAP11 - Letter of Reprieve Author - finnks13 Music - "My Wishing Star" by LPad Comments - I wanted to make something using entirely vanilla textures, which is something I've growm rather fond of recently, though I did spring for a starry sky because I can't resist them :P The gimmick here was to have all the health placed in the central hub, with none being placed in the fights themselves. This meant I had to forgoe my standard design process of being generous with health to curb the meanness of my fight designs, and had to be rather more restrained instead. Since the fights are doable in any order, I thought having the player get access to a plasma gun through an "Any Key" door would make for interesting routing for a blind player, where if a section was too tough, they could try another and come back with the plasma gun to give it another go. The secret BFG stuff came near the end, and I placed it in what I consider the hardest arena to clear, so getting it is very advantageous, but difficult. I think the charming lullaby that LPad wrote for the map does wonders for the atmosphere of the map (it's certainly better than my visuals :P), so I hope you find it relaxing background music to your suffering :) ~~~ MAP12 - Weeping Angel Author - LPad Music - "Drowned Voices" by LPad Comments - I wanted to give a shot in making a big hybrid map. Half explorative, and half combat, to fit the WAD. I tried to make it kinda symbolic, but I focused the most in making most areas feel somewhat welcoming. I can't say for sure if the mood is accomplished, as I'm somewhat unexperienced, and the things in it are rather hard to balance. However I hope it's a somewhat different experience to play and explore. There are two endings in it, one of them requires enduring more hardships than the other. I felt comfortable sitting in the cushion while thinking about what to do next when building, I just hope that experience is translated to playing too. It was a pain to finish, but I think it was worth it. ~~~ MAP13 - Frozen Eon Author - Knifeworld Music - "Saltwater Breeze" by LPad Comments - A chain of encounters in concrete arenas and freezing caves amidst a world left cold, forgotten, and grayed out by time. ~~~ MAP14 - "Azure Assault" Author - taviow Music - "Breath of Life" by Korp & LPad Comments - This is the first map I submitted for the project. I was drawn to Hardfest 2 by my love of slaughter and from the alluring opportunity to work with really cool people. Plus, I had spent a few years just making (unreleased) stuff in UDB. One of the things I made during my long learning period was the starting room of this map, complete with the animated water walls, because at the time I was learning how to make animated textures in SLADE. Originally the map was all blue but the Hardfest 2 palette provided an amazing opportunity to integrate the beautiful yellow textures into the mix. So upon joining the project I did that, and also started building the exterior areas/fights. Those fights all came to me fairly naturally, most notably the ideas generally came to me right as I was going to sleep, which would often stop me from falling asleep at all. Fuck that. But also, I'm glad that it came together easily. The thing that presented the most trouble was the final fight. Perhaps there were easier ways to have set that up, but I ended up using a floor that goes up and down, and when the elevator is on top then the monsters spawn on one side, and when it's on the bottom they spawn on the other side. It sounded easy to me in theory but ended up presenting a lot of complications, notably because I wanted to guarantee a relatively stable spawning rate for the monsters, so the difficulty of the fight is roughly the same every time. Also the first version of this fight didn't work on GZDoom at all, and while it's not the target port I wanted it to work on it, so there was a lot of hackery I had to do to make it work there. I hope it doesn't break while you're playing it (just kidding, it shouldn't.. hopefully). ~~~ MAP15 - Oztracise Author - Cannonball Midi - "Dark Apathy" by Scorpius Comments - This map was supposed to sit in E4M6 of a personal Doom episode replacement, but the with the scale I struggled to come up with decent fights using the limited monster roster. As such I retrofitted it into a Doom 2 map where it found a home here. The theme was essentially “Emerald City that has fallen into the void”, in terms of gameplay it is essentially a linear loop where the start/exit are in the same place, add in some occasional platforming and quite a few cyber turrets that will be dismantled as you progress. Overall this should be a medium level of challenge. ~~~ MAP16 - Electric Castle Author - CblBOPOTKA Music - "False Pretense" by LPad Comments - An ancient cold castle surrounded by the ocean. Life has visited this place twice. And the last time a technogenic imprint was left on it. Now electricity is flowing in his veins. The layout for this map and most of background structures were created quite quickly, which allowed a lot of experimentation with a variety of fights. Speaking about gameplay there is a slight nonlinearity, but then all paths connect into grand finale with cherries on the cake. ~~~ MAP17 - "Mainframe Override" Author - taviow Music - "Royal Penguin Party" by Ravendesk & LPad Comments - Originally made for the project Cereal Killer. It was absolutely NOT supposed to be a slaughter map. But I failed. This is a map where, well, while I was building the layout, as soon as I made the branching paths in the start, I just couldn't resist making the big first fight with the army of hitscanners coming at you from both sides. Plus I thought it was an interesting way to present a real, ()hopefully) mechanically meaningful choice of whether or not you want to pick the invisibility sphere even though there's a Cyber nearby, in a way that is, I think, not simply annoying like forcing you to pick it up or something. I guess I just made the rooms too big, so it ended up leading me in the slaughter route. At that point all bets were off and I just made a bunch of big fights, inluding the final fight where the way the Arachnorbs work in this wad being a rapid fire turret enemy works perfectly for it. I think this is my easiest map in the project. It was made to be straightforward and simple, not very technical or complex in any way, the point is mostly just having the sheer fun of blowing up a ton of fodder enemies. ~~~ MAP18 - "Confluence of Poison" Author - Knifeworld & thelokk Music - "Festing Hard in Ohio" by thelokk Comments - A dark and grimy tekwall infested base nestled within a canyon overflowing with slime. We decided to join forces to create one map. I designed most of the combat encounters and the initial shape of the rooms, Thelokk refined the environmental detailing and added in sector contraptions and some additional fights + combat changes. ~~~ MAP19 - "Geophys" Author - RockyGaming4725 Music - "Digging for Moths" by thelokk Comments - I Initially wanted to make a vast open landscape, but that was pretty quickly scrapped. Once I started making the first cave room, I instantly knew what I wanted to make. Kept on with the map until I hit a massive creativity roadblock. I was really exhausted from the first few rooms, and even though I knew what I wanted, I couldn't quite make it look right. Some time later, after a newfound spark, I pushed through and made the rest of the map. I tried to go for a mix of cramped combat and not-so-cramped combat. The latter ended up having some platforming included for some extra challenge. I packed lots of secrets into this map. For such a short map, they're pretty abundant. I usually put little to no secrets in my maps, but I felt this one deserved cramming in a lot - I think it fits the environment. Secret spoiler ahead :) For the ultra secret I initially wanted it to be a very expansive and detailed mountain area. Instead I settled for something quite basic, but it's supposed to be like a fever dream in a sense, because it doesn't fit in with the rest of the map. ~~~ MAP20 - Kodokushi Author - whybmonotacrab Music - "Astray" by Karl Zuñiga & LPad Comments - I like secrets. And Crumpets :) Shoutout to сыворотка for designing the BFG area, and for introducing platforming to my map. All maps need platforming. ~~~ MAP21 - smol Author - Ravendesk Music - "Kalimba" by LPad Comments - is smol ~~~ MAP22 - A Spooooky Cave Author - finnks13 Music - "Welcome Back / Farewell" by Ravendesk Comments - It's a cave! Inspired primarily by MAP08 & MAP09 of Community Chest 1 (visually at least), it's a dark cave with some small BFG based fights. Not much more to it. Shoutouts to Ravendesk for massively improving the map by getting me to move the secret. ~~~ MAP23 - Demise of Oblivion Author - CblBOPOTKA Music - "Crusher House 14" by Ravendesk Comments - Quite big and quite linear slaughtermap around citadel-wise environment. Contains little puzzle that you can skip if you want, but it can be helpful on later stage. This map inspired by custom yellow sky crafted by project leader, so that it actively using both yellow and red accent colors. ~~~ MAP24 - Techbase Carnage II Author - CittyKat112 Music - "Walking on Eggshells" by LPad Comments - This map was made out of a few old maps for other projects stitched together over the course of a few months. I think it's my best map so far, it has pretty tuff and challenging but also FaiR aND bAlaNceD combat, fun secrets and nice visuals compared to everything I've made prior to this map. ~~~ MAP25 - birb Author - finnks13 Music - "Cosmic Dust" by Ravendesk Comments - Originally made in three hours for "Afternoon", this was deemed "wayy too fucked" by the project leader and because I loved how it came out so much, I didn't want to nerf it into the ground to make it more acceptable, so I decided to whack it into Hardfest 2 instead. It was primarily inspired by Benjogami's work, particularly "The Egg of Human Endeavours" ~~~ MAP26 - Plutonian Reservoir II Author - thelokk Music - untitled by thelokk Comments - A follow-up to 'Plutonian Reservoir', which can be found in Doomer Boards Project 53. Compared to my other map for the project, I attempted to select textures that took advantage of the project's modified palette. The three keys can be tackled in any order, and the combat is mostly small-scale and Plutoniaish. Features a DM arena. ~~~ MAP27 - Black Cherry Author - rd & Maribo Music - "Fortitude" by LPad Comments - rd: Maribo and I made "Black Cherry" together while chatting on Discord. It's a true collab in that you can't really break up contributions to "someone did this element or area, and the other person did this other one." In fact any parts I made by myself were heavily influenced by the collaborative process, and I don't want credit to be separated. It is structured as a setpiece-oriented map but there are so many opportunities to leave fights before taking everything out and allow later infighting or happy accidents in monster interactions to help you. The cybies can shoot halfway across the map and help you with dps. The initial cacoswarm can join you in either key setpiece. Don't get too caught up in trying to clear every fight entirely before leaving an area. Maribo: I love the way this map ended up and there's not really a single thing I would change about it. To me, the centerpiece of the whole map is the massive arachnorb swarm that gets released after you finish one of the two regular key fights, the way they move in this WAD makes them feel like a bit of a death ray if you let them corner you. I remember we dove through a lot of music together. We went through a lot of Stonekeep midis, looking for something that fit the vibe of the map, but didn't turn up much that felt fitting. ~~~ MAP28 - "The Vessel" Author - taviow Music - stacid.mid from ZDaemon CTF III Comments - Yet another one originally made for the project Cereal Killer (Scythe inspired maps). It was rejected for obviously being way too big, and how does it feel like Scythe at all? This is where I realized I have an issue of my maps having an ever-expanding scope and I don't quite know when to stop. This is something I'm working on currently, knowing when to stop. When I finished it, I originally thought it was small. But the first time it was playtested, it became obvious that the map was not really small at all. While I was making it, I wanted the key hunt to be for all 6 keys. But luckily I made it just 3 keys. It sure fits Hardfest 2 at least. For this project, I think the map is the right size as it is, I'm glad I did not make it any bigger. The idea with the towers surrounding the entire map and the surprise of raising them for the final fight came pretty early. I made the entire map as a sort of build up to that moment. For that fight, I realize that fighting cacos on a gigantic open space will be a bit annoying to UV Maxers, but I felt the entire setpiece was cool enough that I left it like that. For people who don't want to be bothered to get 100% kills, I simply allow you to leave the map if you want. There's a few fights like this, where you can just run away if you wish. The final fight and the ambush with the Archies, I think. Didn't want to worry about that for these fights. I felt it was important to give the player freedom to choose their preferred course of action, even if it's just running away. There's other maps I made for HF2 where I really tried to force you to engage with the fights, but I wanted this one to be a little different. ~~~ MAP29 - Acrophilia Author - Ravendesk Music - "Leap of Faith" by LPad Comments - inspired by some maps from Explore Jam series for Quake, hence it's very vertical, very brown and has a quake logo. The map ended up being easier than I originally planned (and quite forgiving as it allows multiple retries for most of the jumps) but I like it that way. Difficulty settings significantly affect platforming, don't hesitate to drop to HMP or HNTR. Completing this map for UV-MAX, Pacifist, UV-Speed, NoMo and NoMo100S are pretty much 5 different routes with varying difficulty (well, some including some others). I hope this can create interesting challenge milestones for whoever decides to demo this map. ~~~ (no map30 cause telefragging) ~~~ MAP31 - Sunscreen Author - Astro X Music - "Face Rocket Deluxe" by thelokk Comments - I liked so much to participate in this project that I felt like designing another map. I wanted this one to be much shorter than Grafaiai and Tinkaton, but still somewhat difficult and exploration-heavy, relatively speaking. I really tried to use different colors and themes to avoid resembling the other map - tough task! Once again, I aimed for a yellow/orange theme as much as I could. I felt like the finale was way too punishing, so instead I made it a secret fight/exit, involving blur spheres, cacos and teleporting cybers, and a bit of platforming at the end just to mess with maxers. ~~~ MAP32 - Dammed Moon Author - finnks13 Music - "Welcome To Skull's Hell" from Fortress 2 Blue Comments - I was originally making a massive facility inspired by SF2012 & SF3's quake-textured maps for the project but I could never figure out an ending, so I started working on this moon themed map while I was mulling that over. Similarly to Map18 from Hardfest 1, this was meant to be a grand ToD-esque slaughtery mess and while it definitely strayed a bit from that towards my own desire for chaos above all else, it's my favourite of the maps I made to play and I'm really proud of how it looks, since that's usually an area I struggle with. ~~~ MAP33 - Dip Author - Yumheart Music - "Erebus" by Ravendesk Comments - My original concept for this map was "make a ToD map with Darkwave visuals". It didn't turn out that way, I think this is more so my own brand of awfulness, and that's because this map is a dramatic victim of creative block. I made the entirety of the BFG spam section in two days and barely finished the map in time for the deadline, which is funny because feedback generally suggested that the BFG part was a lot more fun. My favorite part is definitely the huge cave midsection, my first experience making something akin to "oldschool slaughter" and it's definitely something I'm gonna explore further in my future releases. Curious if anybody's gonna find the map's super secret :D ~~~ MAP34 - downtown detour Author - akolai Music - SCRAPING.mid by zan-zan-zawa-veia Comments - was going to make another b&w puzzle map but that went over to 1x1 instead. this map was a pure expression of the soul - you're going to hate it, i'm not sorry, this is peak mapping. all encounters can be escaped without firing a shot, but if you're not careful you can create problems that manifest later. your options are usually to spend some extremely precious ammo, work out the trick, or faceplant and worry about the problems that causes later. this map is almost impossible to max blind, don't bother. ~~~ MAP35 - Fallen Fairy Author - Nefelibeta Music - "Hexed Wand" by LPad Comments - I vaguely remember building the whole layout centering around the cyber 2-shot arena. Essentially my take on maps similar to Stardate 20x7 (low monster count, interconnected layout, you know the drill) Not really intentional but some fights' styles stick closer to Killer5 rather than Ribbiks. UV is very damn hard, HMP is slightly more acceptable while HNTR is what I consider to be the normal mode. ~~~ MAP36 - The Dollhouse Author - thelokk Music - "Poltergeist" by LPad Comments - Grazes the linedef limit, still remains rather compact and not too long - detailing however can be extreme in spots, and slightly slow down performance. ZDoom ports not reccomended! A love letter to CEMENT9, porcelain dolls and obtuse progression. Combat ranges from claustrophobic small encounters to slaughter-lite. Extreme secret stuffing, some of which require careful manipulation of the engine's movement and physics. Special thanks to Rednov for inspiration and guidance. ~~~ MAP37 - Grafaiai and Tinkaton Author - Astro X Music - "Contained Furies" by LPad Comments - I wanted to redeem myself from the last edition of HF, in which I had to rush to submit a decently playable map. So, this time around I worked really hard on visuals - my worst mapping skill, I think (second would be building multiple square rooms and call them arenas). I was aiming for an upgrade in terms of difficulty, compared to my last HF contribution. As I always do, I don't like to give all the weapons right away - instead I kind of build momentum and atmosphere as the level progresses. Also, I like to add multiple optional/secret areas to my maps, to motivate and reward the player's exploration. The result was that this map turned out to be really gigantic - by far the largest and most difficult I've ever designed. Thankfully, I made it non-linear so the player can create their own route through the map, not even being necessary to visit half of the rooms if playing continuously. ~~~ MAP38 - The Vortex Author - taviow Music - "Saturnian Ram" by LPad Comments - The entire opening room came to me just as I was going to sleep, as things often do. At that point I just had to plan it out, instead of sleeping. The structure with the hanging corpses was absurdly annoying to make, because of the use of midtextures mixed up with the staircase below. But I had to do it using midtex, because from the start I'd intended that the player would be able to see the entire map from above without obstructions. I didn't know at the time how big the map would end up being. Didn't even imagine that I'd need to be concerned about how well the map runs, but I realized that would be the case about halfway through making it. The first version of the map did not have shootable switches to start each fight, all monsters in the map were alerted at once. I changed that in the hopes that it would improve performance. I started this shortly after finishing Azure Assault, and one piece of feedback I received from that map was that pretty much every fight involved Archviles. I made a conscious effort to mostly avoid them in this map, or at least not present them as a huge threat in the fights. This was also the case in the following maps I made in HF2. You can make very mechanically interesting fights with Archviles but I don't want to rely on them too much. I made the fight with the bridges after playing Entropy. I'd seen a UV Max of that map where the player didn't even engage with the really cool mechanic of blocking the monster teleports, just rocketed the shit out of everything nonstop. I tried to make this fight harder than that in such a way that you hopefully couldn't ignore the gimmick, but ultimately for a long time this fight was just dumb. In the first version you needed to control all 3 bridges and use the Cyber for infighting with the HKs, but obviously that proved unreliable and annoying, plus you were constantly rocketed in the back while pressing the switch to lower the HK bridge. At some point I had the idea to make both side switches lower the central bridge too and I think the fight is way better for it. While not what I originally intended, I ultimately nerfed the fight a lot because it's far more important that it isn't fucking obnoxious. The colosseum where the final fight takes place was inspired by a photo of a tapestry I found on the internet. The swirly thing I did in the center ended up being so cool that, well, it became the title of the map. The map was lacking a clear direction or identity until then, I just didn't know what to call it. The whirlpool was inspired by IG suggesting that I could have some kind of shape twisting into the center of the circle somehow. The end result is how I interpreted his words. I was already low on lines by that point so it became a risky prospect to do it. But it worked out! I'm slightly disappointed with the final fight being so circle strafey. Welp, that's what happens when you make a huge circle I guess. I did what I could to make it more interesting, namely placing the surrounding Cybers, especially on UV as there's a lot more of them. But since the final fight is such a massive performance drain anyway, perhaps how simple it is mechanically is all for the best. ~~~ MAP39 - Piss Facility Author - el inferno Music - "Caught In The Shadows" by Jimmy ~~~ MAP40 - The Umbral Engine Author - Dan Music - "The Crumbling Engine" by Korp & LPad Comments - A very large slaughter map. Influences are fairly obvious, with the architecture being mostly inspired by Insane Gazebo/bemused, while the combat is closer to NoReason's style of macro slaughter - although I did make an effort to include at least some non-BFG spam at the start :^) UV is very difficult. Initially this map had a dramatically different layout. Although I knew it was a pretty big risk, I built the whole map into one large 30k x 30k room. Eventually it became apparant that I wasn't going to be able to get acceptable performance, and I made the difficult decision to completely redesign the layout at about ~55k linedefs drawn. This worked out for the best though, as it allowed me to cull around a half dozen encounters that I wasn't happy with, and I think it looks significantly better as well. The one thing I'm unhappy about is that the infinite RL fight had to be shut off in it's own room (for no other reason than there wasn't any good place to put it), while the old version showed it off from the start of the map. A handful of the fights in this map are leftovers from my first couple of (unreleased) maps: the vile quadrant fight following the backpack arena, the L-shape fight after the BFG structure and finally the red key arena. The RK arena is the one I am most pleased with, despite it being radically different to my previous attempt at this kind of encounter. The "sequence config" room for the RK arena nearly drove me insane trying to nail down the voodoo setup. Don't look at it in UDB unless you want a headache. There is a potential softlock here if the player tries really hard to shoot switches in quick succession. So... don't do that :^) Massive thanks to Starduster for testing both layouts. ~~~ MAP41 - Credits Author - The Hardfest 2 Team Music - "Rhubarb" by Scorpius Comments - Relive all those happy/painful memories with these little vignettes of the wad. Thank you for playing it, we hope you had fun! -finnks13 ~~~ If you scrolled all this way and read all of this, you're awesome <3