[now on /idgames!] Hardfest (Boom Community Project)

[finnks13]

Greetings mortals, Hardfest is a community project that is an homage to the Slaughterfest saga, not fully focused on slaughter maps this time, but hard maps in general. To that end, we've got a range of maps for you - ranging in style from small, tight combat puzzles to expansive slaughtermaps. There's also a puzzle map and a platforming map thrown in for good measure :^)

 

If that's not enough to convince you, then here's some screenshots:

 

 

 

 

Over the three months of development, we've made 20 maps in total, split over three episodes that share broad themes in their gameplay style

 

EPISODE 1: Curiosities

Easier maps that are not slaughter, expect short, fast-paced battles for survival!

Spoiler

01 Basement Dwellers by @finnks13
02 Catnip Outpost by @Korp
03 Decaying Fields by @Endless
04 Blood and Rebar by @Ludi

05 The Metal Age by @Scorpius

06 Cubecraft 3D by @Worriedidiot

 

EPISODE 2: Oddities

Maps that have particularly unusual gameplay, be prepared for anything...

Spoiler

07 Cacau Brownie by @gabirupee

08 Aetheon's Heart by @Yumheart

09 The Smegma Flow by @Thelokk

10 Ethereal by @akolai

11 Malachite Forest by @El Inferno

 

EPISODE 3: Slaughter

You can probably guess what these maps are going to be :P

Spoiler

12 Barricades 2 by Worriedidiot

13 The Abyss by @Norb

14 Subtlety by finnks13

15 Gorgeous Nightmare by @Astro X

16 Security Breach by @RockyGaming4725

17 Otherworldly Frontier by @HiRon

18 Asymptote by finnks13

19 Callused by @KineticBeverage

20 Aphelion by @Dan87

 

 

Hardfest has a fully bespoke soundtrack made by @Korp and @LPad!

Listen to it all here: 

 

 

Maps: 01-20 (with a credits map)
Difficulties: Yes
Co-op/DM Starts: Co-op should be present in maps, but it is untested. No Deathmatch starts except in Thelokk's map... for some reason.
Format: Boom (-cl 9)
Tested With: dsdadoom v0.24.3, GZDoom v4.8.2, prboom+ v2.5.1.5

 

Full credits for textures, graphics, playtesting and music can be found in hardfest.txt

 

 

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/megawads/hardfest

(idgames release!)

 

Old Versions:

Spoiler

RC2 (Many changes, see Page 2): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HigcWNXusXstgFH-1gZMQEgGGK6_Uy0a/view?usp=share_link

RC1.3 (Fix to Map09's MIDI): https://drive.google.com/file/d/12FM334SnL8nqCRFkqv9aZ4Q1MTUmrntO/view?usp=sharing

RC1.2 (Fix to a large HOM on Map05): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lqhEGvy8TdkT0mBYn2s40zPCKr8gdzHc/view?usp=sharing

RC1.1 (Fix to Map12's MIDI): https://drive.google.com/file/d/121OBPKqR2ZHjRj4lAyp1rujVxRXedTga/view?usp=sharing

RC1: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pJB9mqIjsVUpYmRa-RT7Yn9quQLsP_qL/view?usp=sharing

 

Edited February 23, 2023 by finnks13
Updated download link to idgames

[Norb]

It's been a pleasure making a map for this :P

 

Have fun y'all!

[Thelokk]

[Nightmare2989]

1 minute ago, Norb said:

It's been a pleasure making a map for this :P

 

Have fun y'all!

I will look forward to playing map Norb man

[Worriedidiot]

"I'm hard for Hardfest" - Abraham Lincoln

Such a wise man...

 

Jokes aside, it was such a pleasure to contribute to this. MAP06 is probably one of the most solid maps I've ever done.

[Norb]

We are all hard for Hardfest.

 

Jokes aside, Map13 is possibly the best level I made so far.

Edited October 21, 2022 by Norb

[Korp]

 What a blast it was to work on this! Cheers guys :3

[Scorpius]

I loved working on this, thanks for the opportunity!

 

No jokes aside, MAP05 is probably the one of the best maps I've published.

[Rabbid]

I can't tell if Finnks just took over...or if they are the same person...yeah still good job.

[finnks13]

5 minutes ago, Rabbid said:

I can't tell if Finnks just took over...or if they are the same person...yeah still good job.

 

gabirupee had to step down from running the project due to some personal reasons that unexpectedly appeared, he handed over the project to me so it would be completed and released (hence the new thread as I can't edit the OP of the other one). We are different people, I promise!

[Rabbid]

ah... well then I switch my perspective on this now... I see it as better then before...

[RockyGaming4725]

I loved seeing this come together! Hell of a job everyone :)

[HiRon]

I loved contributing to this, made probably my best map, great job to everyone that contributed!

 

 

[Nightmare2989]

11 minutes ago, HiRon said:

I loved contributing to this, made probably my best map, great job to everyone that contributed!

 

 

How your sex life LOL

[Ludi]

Hell yeah! Good job everyone. I'm honored to have my map be the first screenshot!

 

Gabirupee would be proud :]

 

 

Edited September 25, 2022 by Ludi

[Dusty_Rhodes]

Congrats on the release! I'm really looking forward to this one. 

[SleepyVelvet]

Looks like a nice set so far.  Congrats on a successfully lead community project.  Such things don't go so well all the time.

 

I gave the Curiosities and half of the Slaughter episode the 10 minute try.  I dare not touch the Oddities yet because I am afraid.

Here's a bunch of FDAs.  Taking a break before I burn out.

noisy_hardfes_RC11_m1.zip

[Thelokk]

13 minutes ago, NoisyVelvet said:

I dare not touch the Oddities yet because I am afraid.

 

Nothing to be afraid of! Come inside, come inside, we got cookies... ^{and death.}

[knifeworld]

Congrats on the RC1! Looking forward to playing the finished product.
Was fun to watch the development of this project despite having to step away due to irl crap, I'll definitely join a sequel if it happens!

[Revenant Boys]

Yes !!!!!!

[Lingyan203]

May be very late to this club, but here's my playthrough of Cydonia:

 

 

Oops! I posted this in the wrong section, my bad! How do I remove a post I posted by mistake?

Edited September 26, 2022 by Lingyan203

[Thelokk]

7 minutes ago, Lingyan203 said:

May be very late to this club, but here's my playthrough of Cydonia:

 

 

Oops! I posted this in the wrong section, my bad! How do I remove a post I posted by mistake?

 

Honestly, kinda disappointed this was a mistake and not subtle metacommentary on the project. 

 

 

Or maybe it is?...

[SleepyVelvet]

Here's a couple FDA playthroughs for @gabirupee and @Yumheart.

Played on RC1.3 with Complevel 13 (MBF with saves... lots and lots of saves...)

 

noisy_hardfest_RC13_m8.zip

Edited September 27, 2022 by NoisyVelvet
RC3 -> RC1.3

[Yumheart]

20 hours ago, NoisyVelvet said:

Here's a couple FDA playthroughs for @gabirupee and @Yumheart.

Played on RC1.3 with Complevel 13 (MBF with saves... lots and lots of saves...)

Tried it in DSDA on complevel 13 and it always seems to desync after the first death. Does that have smth to do with saving?

[SleepyVelvet]

8 minutes ago, Yumheart said:

Tried it in DSDA on complevel 13 and it always seems to desync after the first death. Does that have smth to do with saving?

Works for me on a different prboom+ lying around.  The deaths in the hotdog chaingunner-revenant trap aren't desyncs, just me trying to brute force my way through.  I eventually restart from scratch and it starts to go a bit better from there.

[Yumheart]

21 minutes ago, NoisyVelvet said:

Works for me on a different prboom+ lying around.  The deaths in the hotdog chaingunner-revenant trap aren't desyncs, just me trying to brute force my way through.  I eventually restart from scratch and it starts to go a bit better from there.

You restart from scratch every time you die and then fire blindly into walls for me, which definitely seems like a desync. I guess I'll download PrBoom+ and see if that works any better.

[SleepyVelvet]

You're right... In DSDA-Doom it doesn't do any saving.  In Prboom+ it kinda just plops saves in where needed and kinda just works. 

I wonder if it's intentional design and/or has anything to do with DSDA-Doom's infinite save limit.

[tmorrow]

A great and challenging wad.

I'm not sure how important these items are but I thought I should raise them just in case.
I'm using HARDFEST RC1 Hotfix #3.
In gzdoom 4.8.0, some maps are getting some warnings on load.

 

MAP04

1. Line 6990's right edge is unconnected

MAP11

1. Line 14096 has no first side.
2. Line 14097 has no first side.
3. Line 14098 has no first side.
4. Line 14099 has no first side.
5. Line 14096's right edge is unconnected
6. Line 14097's right edge is unconnected
7. Line 14098's right edge is unconnected
8. Line 14099's right edge is unconnected

MAP12

1. Line 515 has no first side.
2. Line 1403 has no first side.
3. Line 1409 has no first side.
4. Line 515's right edge is unconnected
5. Line 1403's right edge is unconnected
6. Line 1409's right edge is unconnected

MAP13

1. Line 3788 has no first side.
2. Line 3788's right edge is unconnected

MAP16

1. Line 1467 has no first side.

MAP18

1. Line 1513 has no first side.
2. Line 1513's right edge is unconnected

MAP19

1. Line 78 has no first side.
2. Line 78's right edge is unconnected

MAP20

1. Line 9404 has no first side.
2. Line 9405 has no first side.
3. This map does not seem to have an exit to MAP21 (the credits map) when looking in gzdoombuilder. At the end you teleport into a cubicle of exploding barrels with an icon of sin and you get the death exit just like on a map30 but then the usual map30 endgame starts and not map21. Might need a MAPINFO change to work - not sure.

[besus]

Spoiler

Props to whoever made the 7 bridges of Konigsberg, best puzzle

very cool wad!

[SleepyVelvet]

Here's FDAs for @Thelokk and @akolai, recorded in complevel 13 with saves (unfortunately doesn't play back in DSDA-Doom.)

noisy_hardfest_RC1_3_m9-10.zip

 

Episode 2: Oddities is getting harder and harder with each map...

 

Thelokk's took about 1 hour with saves for me.

 

I just finished akolai's map, and it was evil.  You know what you did :).  I tried to avoid spoilers but did indeed see a small amount of it while peaking at someone's live playthrough, even a glimpse of the final puzzle before dipping.  I hazard to guess this is a demo you do not want to watch...  I think there's like 2 hours of demo and some pause breaks (I hit Pause then Escape to mark pauses usually) for notetaking in there.

Other opinions:

 

 

The first puzzle, timed switches, kinda just seemed like a trial-and-error puzzle.  Unless I was missing something, the player is to assume that they have to hit them all really fast, and then just try a several permutations until it works.  I guess it wasn't too extreme.  Though, I thought it was cool how stuff like the encrypted 5;S gets used later, even if it was just used for flavor text.

For the second puzzle, the ring of timed spoke lifts: I spoiled it by watching an aforementioned stream, but I would've probably given up without the preknowledge, because when I executed the "solution", I goofed it up without realizing it. 

I loved the final puzzle in hindsight, and ironically, I think it's the most fair and deducible part of the map, so long as the player knows their janky Doom lift mechanics.  You probably could've locked the player in here so they don't give up and get the idea to look elsewhere, in my opinion.
In that last puzzle, I did some really dumb things until I eventually figured out the intended (I think) solution, which is slightly more elegant than I originally thought, though still with a tricky angle and movement speed to execute.

It was indeed hard, congrats.  Cool map too.

 

...Oh, and I think I broke the exit conveyor in Map10 (might be a complevel thing?  I linedef skip the exit line)

Edited October 9, 2022 by NoisyVelvet