Hardfest 2 - Doomworld /idgames database frontend

Title:	Hardfest 2
Filename:	levels/doom2/Ports/megawads/hardfest2.zip
Size:	37.55 MB
Date:	03/10/24
Author:	Various
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.
Credits:	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
Base:	New from scratch
Build time:	Just over six months
Editor(s) used:	Ultimate Doom Builder, Doom Builder X, Slade3, paint.net, DoomWriter
Bugs:	None, I hope :P
Rating:

Download mirrors:

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View hardfest2.txt

===========================================================================
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

mong