[Vanilla Megawad] Hard Nut to Crack

[slugger]

 

Screenshots

 

While on one of your typical daydream patrols, hellish monsters suddenly float up from the base's deposit lake! Flying skulls chase you into a one-way service duct where your adventure begins... A journey into the deepest canyons of hell!!

 

Blast through 32 chaotic levels to rockin' MIDIs from 'round the net! PAR time is 2-3 hours. Pistol start and continuous are both encouraged. Includes new textures, sounds, flats, decorations, and a new enemy (all vanilla-compatible). These short but weird levels, inspired by powerful mappers like Sandy Petersen, Stanley Stasiak (Castle of Evil), and Greytale (DARKHELL.WAD), include a wide variety of challenges and themes. And if you just want big, hostile, abstract Sandyboxes - the best type of level - don't miss map19, map26, and map29!

 

Have fun, hope you enjoy it!

 

DOWNLOAD

• Download .zip from Google
• Download .zip from Google (no custom SFX)

 

The ZIP includes a DEH and a WAD. Most source ports can just use the WAD file (it contains everything they need). Chocolate Doom should load it like this:

chocolate-doom -deh hntc.deh -merge hntc.wad

 

Recommended:

• Original Doom 2 rendering and lighting (vanilla)
• Complevel 2 or 3 (whatever is your standard complevel for vanilla wads)
• Disable lost soul limit (modern convenience)
• Disable screen tinting (modern convenience)
• Chef's recommendations: map03, map07, map10, map12, map19, map22, map26, map30, map32

 

Not recommended:

• Jumping
• Crouching
• Running over the tops of monsters and decorations
• Freelook

 

More Screenshots

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spoiler

 

General information

IWAD: Doom 2

Format: Doom 2

Singleplayer: Yes

Co-op: Yes but untested

Deathmatch: Yes but untested

Skill levels: Yes but untested (UV preferred)

DEHACKED: Yes

Tested on: DSDA-Doom, Chocolate Doom, prBoom+, GZDoom

Custom sprites and sounds: Yes

Custom textures: Yes

Length: 2-3 hours

Monster count: Low-medium

 

Errors

Spoiler

- map02, map12, map16, and map30: MIDIs are too big to play in vanilla. Use idmus to change tracks

- There are one or two situations where archviles can resurrect crushed things, making ghosts. Try to lure them away from crushers if you can.

- map09 has janky door, not essential to progress

Music

Spoiler

If anyone recognizes an unknown song, please let me know!

 

Intermission: ???
Title: Solid Sessions Feat Natalie Smith - Janeiro (Armin Van Buuren Remix)

Episode 1: Filthy Planet
MAP01 drop-in: Deicide - Bastards of Christ
MAP02 niche: Led Zeppelin - Achilles' Last Stand
MAP03 testing lab: Cradle Of Filth - Nimphetamine Fix
MAP04 decolage: Garbage - Push It
MAP05 patio: Flobots - Handlebars
MAP06 the darkrooms: Las Ketchup - The Ketchup Song

Episode 2: The Depths

MAP07 subterranean outpost: Halliwell - Scream if You Wanna Go Faster

MAP08 the things you do: Korn - Trash
MAP09 server room: ???
MAP10 back access: INXS - Never Tear Us Apart
MAP11 dungeon crawl: Deep Purple - Speed King
MAP12 outlet: Iron Maiden - Don't Look To The Eyes of a Stranger
MAP13 apartment: ???
MAP14 local hotspot: hunting_high_and_low_live.mid
MAP15 alley: My Dying Bride - The Snow in My Hand
MAP16 minimal tension: Iron Maiden - Fear of the Dark
MAP17 s&m: Rihanna - S&M
MAP18 badland laboratory: David Bowie - Jump They Say
MAP19 castle town: Deep Purple - Deamon Eye
MAP20 war theater: O-Zone - Dragostea Din Tei

Episode 3: Final Evil
MAP21 get a move on: Frozen Fruits - Title screen track
MAP22 fortress of insanity: Mortician - Annihilation
MAP23 if it bleeds...: ??? "New Title" arranged by gerth@usa.net
MAP24 the urge to kill: Dimmu Borgir - The Night Masquerade
MAP25 just bloody business: ???
MAP26 godforsaken city: ???
MAP27 warehouse: My Dying Bride - Base Level Erotica
MAP28 head office: Dimmu Borgir - Metal Heart
MAP29 land of sacrifice: Allan Holdsworth - Mr. Berwell / Cynic - King of Those Who Know
MAP30 endomorph: Burzum - Jesus Tod
MAP31 let's arena: Dark Tranquillity - The Treason Wall
MAP32 jump: Van Halen - Jump

 

Edited August 20 by slugger : Fixed links

[DoomVile]

This looks great! Nice to see a megawad out of nowhere. Will play when I get the chance.

[slugger]

Thank you!! It looks like today is a good day for Sandy-inspired megawads!

[DoomVile]

23 minutes ago, slugger said:

Thank you!! It looks like today is a good day for Sandy-inspired megawads!

Haha! Yes it is.

[s4f3s3x]

Hmmmm, a new Chocolate megawad, looks tasty and very funny!

[Walter confetti]

Really digging the strong 90s vibes from what i see!

[Deadwing]

Oh boy, that flesh flag, looks awesome!

[dashlet]

Played from 01 up to 11 today, having a blast with this mapset. Lovely 90s style maps which actually nail the feeling of playing through some random shareware maps. Progression is a bit cryptid but thats expected, and the layouts are all fascinating so far. Lots of really creative sector and texture usage that mostly focuses on abstract design, and very evil and chaotic enemy placement to keep you on your toes, with some traps that act like death boxes.

 

Playing through these reminded me of Nicolas Monti maps and Down The Drain, so for those who enjoy that kind of thing theres probably something in here that you will like too. Also these maps felt like they would be really fun to demo, so ill probably do some of that once it gets finished. Thank you for sharing

 

My only personal complaint is that some of the custom sounds are not by cup of tea, even though they are pretty funny.

[LadyMistDragon]

Strangely little attention at first so I thought I'd give it a shot. Wow, those Lost Souls sound so goofy. :)

 

 

 

 

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP12: I'm not able to access two secret sectors. First is sector 74, which seems to be entirely blocked by impassable linedefs (notably linedef 748, I tried an arch-vile jump here). And then sector 152, which has a teleporter leading to it but the linedef for teleporting in (1035) is tucked behind an unreachable area plus it's too small to fit regardless (also tried arch-vile jumping from the left side, but the ceiling is too low for that too).

 

Edit: Now I'm totally stuck on MAP15. the linedefs 1763 and 1777 are supposed to open a gateway but I can't get through, the whole south part has no other way to leave and it's even possible to get stuck on the west side of this area if you jump west of those trees. Ended up retrying and then found the secret exit to MAP31, where now I find that a spiderdemon (485) cannot teleport into the third arena, the linedef doesn't make the thing go down enough.

Edited August 19 by NuMetalManiak

[slugger]

Thanks so much for the kind words!! I uploaded a version without sounds too, for those who don't want to hear the plasma SFX made even more annoying. :) I love Nicolas Monti and Benjogami. Monti is a genius and all his WADs are inspiring. A lot of people call Down the Drain a fusion between 90s and modern styles - that's what I wanted to do with HNTC, a WAD with the shareware soul from another universe. I should page @Doomkid because he likes that kind of thing.

 

As for demos, I definitely made these maps to be sped through. I think all the levels only take like 3 minutes max if you beeline to the keys. Even map29, the extra-big ugly one which was inspired by Sunder. A lot of the early levels were designed to be fun to 100%, but on the later stages, that goes out the window.

 

The playthrough video is super helpful. I forgot I had last-minute added that one bit of wire in MAP04, the cubby has the same light level so it doesn't clip right. That's fixed in the new version. Thanks for recording!

 

@NuMetalManiak Ah shit, I blocked off 74 because that viewpoint was too visplaney and never cleaned up the tag. I started 152 after I got knocked there by an archvile and thought it would be fun to tuck a secret in there, then I forgot about it entirely. New version uploaded that scraps them both. Thanks for taking the archvile blasts to track those down. If you find more goofs please keep em coming. Next time I have to make some kind of bug tracker for myself.

[NuMetalManiak]

Will do,

 

Speaking of, MAP19. A couple of switches (linedefs 2358 and 1802) don't work since nothing has their tags (42 and 45 respectively). I assume the latter switch is for that megasphere pillar (which is untagged). Meanwhile, the NE teleporter (2421, 2423, and 2424) goes to a random door sector which doesn't even have a teleport landing and does not work.

 

MAP20: Unreachable secret sector in 143.

 

MAP21: The entire west section of the level seems to be inaccessible. There's a teleporter landing with a sector tagged 19, but no linedef attached to it. Lots of barons are there, but it seems the only feasible way to get them all is to lure them to a narrow corridor.

 

MAP22: Yeah, no, I, I just can't. This one is going to be the run killer. Several bad design choices here. Maze was optional but it's again possible to get permanently stuck. But one thing that's notable is that the linedef 1935 because this is NOT a vanilla linedef action, but a Boom action, so it won't work in vanilla.

 

MAP24: The teleporter with linedefs 914-917 is supposed to lead to the two-headed guy sector to the south, but the tag is for the border wall of the sector that is around where you're supposed to teleport and not the sector itself.

 

MAP26: Teleport landing 916 is on a sector with no tag. Sector 252 also doesn't open correctly because of a surrounding sector being only 1 more in height instead of the supposed way.

 

MAP28: Secret sector 344 is not accessible. Not only does it not have a teleport destination thing, the corridor you teleport to to get to the teleporter that leads here has a teleport destination thing (682) only flagged for ITYTD/HNTR.

 

MAP29: ...and stuck in the BFG room, wonderful. Actually don't think I can beat it, the one blue key is on a really high platform, there's no way to teleport to it, and you need it to finish.

Edited August 20 by NuMetalManiak

[slugger]

@NuMetalManiak

MAP15: This map used to have a totally different bunch of sections that I gutted and didn't sew together properly. I took out the south part entirely and it should be less messy now. The tree part, I think you're talking about the trees in the south section, the ones in the west should be fully navigable and they have a secret in them. If you dropped off the stairs in the last room you would also get softlocked, that's fixed now. I also feel a little guilty about having a trap that calls the player an "idiot" even though it's funny.

MAP19: I think there are more teleporters in this one that could have better destinations. How much of these levels are broken and I don't know because I just play the one route that lets you eke out a win.

MAP20: That whole section was a copy-paste of another map for background details, but the secret sector wasn't even visible. Not sure if this level is actually possible without taking a shitload of damage from the floor, so I put more rad suits on the lower difficulties.

MAP21: I don't remember making this part at all. I guess I thought it would be accessible at some point.

MAP22: Okay, revamped most of these sections a bit (1.4)

MAP24: Oof, that was a change I made right before releasing and didn't cover

MAP26: Pointless area, removed.

MAP28, 29: Fixed/fixed/fixed. I guess I thought that pillar was reachable from the ground lol

 

Those problems should be fixed now. Congratulations, and thanks so much for putting up with all the shit to playtest for me! Thanks for making it so far and giving me all these good pointers to help me improve!!

Edited August 20 by slugger : version 1.4

[EffinghamHuffnagel]

Why are both download links the same?

[slugger]

They're different now!

[janiform]

Haven't had time to play this yet, but the screenshots look fantastic. Nice work.

[Punisher]

Looks awesome! I'll definetly play this tomorrow when i wake up. How long did it take to create this megawad?

[slugger]

On 8/20/2024 at 11:44 AM, Punisher said:

Looks awesome! I'll definetly play this tomorrow when i wake up. How long did it take to create this megawad?

 

Thank you! Hard to say how long it took. I made most of these levels 4 years ago, then whenever I had a few minutes free, I'd go in and change them up. It takes me about half a day to make a map, but then I make teeny adjustments for months on end.

 

On 8/19/2024 at 10:28 AM, dashlet said:

Played from 01 up to 11 today, having a blast with this mapset. Lovely 90s style maps which actually nail the feeling of playing through some random shareware maps. Progression is a bit cryptid but thats expected, and the layouts are all fascinating so far. Lots of really creative sector and texture usage that mostly focuses on abstract design, and very evil and chaotic enemy placement to keep you on your toes, with some traps that act like death boxes.

 

Playing through these reminded me of Nicolas Monti maps and Down The Drain, so for those who enjoy that kind of thing theres probably something in here that you will like too. Also these maps felt like they would be really fun to demo, so ill probably do some of that once it gets finished. Thank you for sharing

 

My only personal complaint is that some of the custom sounds are not by cup of tea, even though they are pretty funny.

 

I just wanted to thank you again for this post, this really made my day. Hope everyone enjoys and have a good time!

Edited August 25 by slugger

[Keykhosrau]

Map03 is some good stuff, man. :)

[thelamp]

Played the first few maps, really great stuff!

 

 

[thelamp]

wow that archie scared me the first time seeing it haha

 

 

[thelamp]

 

[thelamp]

my mic is working!

 

 

[thelamp]

 

[thelamp]

Sorry forgot to post there here haha, enjoy!

 

Spoiler

 

 

[BEG]

Been enjoying this, playing a map every once and then, Chocolate doom crashes on map 08 :(

It runs for a few seconds, than crashes.

[Cacodemon]

Well, what to say about this megaWAD? Uhm. I played it, and it took quite some time, though I did not play daily. I used BrutalDooM along with it (on Ultra Violence), which modifies things quite a bit. Some things become much harder, some less. I finished today (all maps) and are left with mixed feelings.

On the plus side: It's a megawad, it gives you ... fun/pain? for many hours, some battles are interesting. On the downside there are numerous super-dark areas, there are unfair parts where one has to stand in acid floor (no radsuit etc. around) and wait for some floor to lower, press a switch and then still... but you're already dead, even though you went in with blue armour and 100+ health. Lots of Cyberdemons etc., plethora of Revenants.

Also architecture... mixed bag. Some was fine but I had the impression that esp. later maps went down in quality, with some entirely random stuff in-between, completely chaotic, like these ultra-early maps in the 90s; missing textures, some HOM-effects and so on. Or just a little trench where you can fall in and not get out by any means.

It was challenging, so it lived up to its name, though some parts I found unfair or just horribly tedious. Of course it is partially also my fault by adding BrutalDooM. I think I had to cheat 2 or 3 times for being stuck (noclip) or having to add a radsuit (map29, the situation mentioned above) and maybe godmode in one battle somewhere in the middle.

 

There is good potential here, and some battles were actually good and intersting or nice surprise-traps (though very hard); so if this received polishing in lights, architecture and some balancing it could be really good.