August 10th, 2000

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Nightmare Castle - A Hexen II Map
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Title                   : Nightmare Castle 1.0
Filename                : ncastle.zip containing /maps/he4m1.bsp & /midi/cath.mid
Author                  : Dehumaniser & Aenn Seidhe Priest (they're two different alter egos of a single person)
URL                     : http://sidhepriest.tripod.com - Nihilistic Chapel of the Chaos Serpent
Email Address           : dehumaniser@operamail.com (work), s-priest@operamail.com (personal)
Thanx to 		: Everyone at Raven: Michael Raymond-Judy, Eric Biessman and other designers; Kevin Schilder
			  for the marvellous soundtrack, Godflesh & Black Sabbath for providing the music I listened
			  to while working, Pilsner Urquell & Heineken for beer, Kor Skarn for the H II utilities and textures.

Story                   : This is a replica of the ancient Nightmare Castle that once existed on Parthoris, in the land not
			  far from the Forgotten City of Ice. Brave Seidhe Elves, Ssithra and K'Chekrik fought each other and
			  fearful and fearless beasts in that small castle where the only exit was for victors of
			  the battle. Only those who were desperate enough and had nothing to lose entered the fight for life
			  in the Nightmare Castle; those who have lost everything in this mortal life and wanted to join heaven,
			  hell or prove themselves worthy of living.
			  Wise Mages told, the Castle was a microcosmos of itself, ruled by a spirit of a now forgotten great warrior and
			  philosopher who tried to feat God himself and find the meaning of this world's life. Once he
			  died, his soul was left restless wandering across the lands of Parthoris, looking for a solution to
			  the greatest question of philosopher's life. Finally, out of nowhere the Castle arose, and
			  the philosopher's ghost became ruler of it to let others decide the problem that he tried to solve
			  all of his life: is there any meaning in a mortal being's life at all?
			  Those who won found their exit through the giant teleporter that opened from the sky
			  in the main ceremonial hall.
			  Legends tell, on his way to d'Sparil's underwater lair, Corvus went by the Nightmare Castle and beat
			  thirty and seven adversaries before resuming his path. Corvus' deeds have set the great philosopher
			  in a long-lasting spleen; no fights any longer were carried out in the Castle, for the spirit's
			  reason of restless existence was suddenly shattered: the deeds and simple sayings of Corvus taught
			  the ghost the real meaning of life, that of living in harmony in this world and defending that
			  harmony from any ploy to destroy it.
			  Having fulfilled its true destiny in the Ancient land of Parthoris, that of raising and training future heroes,
			  the Nightmare Castle disappeared overnight after d'Sparil's defeat.


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** Play Information **

Episode and Level #     : E4M1
Single Player           : Yes, not fully implemented - wait until release 1.1 :-)
Cooperative		: No, not yet.
Deathmatch 2-4 Player   : Yes, a real bloodbath for 4, good for one-versus-one duels.
Difficulty Settings     : Not implemented
New Sounds              : No
New Graphics            : Kind of: Heretic I and II textures
New Music               : Again, one sort of: Kevin Schilder's mus_e1m6 from Heretic.
Version			: 1.0

** Construction **

Base                    : Heretic E4M3 as a prototype, otherwise from scratch
Tools abused            : Aditor, Worldcraft 1.6a, Quark 5.10 & 5.11 QTA, Windows Commander 3.50, Micrographx Picture Publisher 6,
			  JHeretic, Heretic, DeeP 97, Kor Skarn's enhanced Hexen II utilities.
Known Bugs              : the poly count is a tad high, so this one should be better in GL, there still may be some cosmetic
                          defects left around.


** Notes **

This level, I hope, will be part of the Ravenhurst mission pack to be released by Boog.

It was a major pain to build the level from scratch, mostly because I wanted to keep it
as close to the original Heretic level as possible. The architecture is mostly identical
(to the point that every wall has the same length) but I've inserted real brushes where Heretic
had transparent window textures, I've inserted an arch between the starting and the Phoenix
halls, and increased the height of the starting hall to keep it on par with the Hexen II
characters' height.
Also, ALL the texturing is identical to the original (except the sky and the water, of course).
It was really hard to adjust every single texture, but well, it's done :-) .
Some decorations, such as hanging skulls and hanging corpses and serpent torches
are missing. While it is possible in theory to have them in place, it would make the level almost
unplayable because of the slowdown, so these are intentionally left out.
I did do some nice tricks, replacing the Demon torches from Heretic with my own "Angel fire", so...
The webs are also in place, and moving :-)
A Heretic II port will in theory follow (and be more detailed and faster).
What else... ah yes, the stats!

1007 brushes
6053 faces
14 solid entities
197 point entities

DM starts: 7
Co-op starts: 4
Weapons present: all


** Copyright / Permissions **

This level, soundtrack and textures originally copyright Raven Software; remake copyleft Aenn
Seidhe Priest & Dehumaniser.
Heretic, Heretic II, Hexen and Hexen II are all copyright Raven Software.
Heretic, Heretic II, Hexen and Hexen II were based on id Software engines, extensively modified by Raven.
Doom, Doom II, Quake & Quake II games and game engines are copyright id Software.

Neither Aenn Seidhe Priest or Dehumaniser will be liable for any moral and/or material damage
caused by use, abuse or misuse of this Hexen II level, including but not limited to: any
moral damage caused by the dirty talk of the player; computer and other hardware destroyed by
the player; any consequences to the player's personal life that the level might have.

Authors may NOT use this level as a base to build other
levels.

You MAY distribute this BSP, provided you include this file, with
no modifications.  You may distribute this file in any electronic
format (BBS, Diskette, CD, etc) as long as you include all files
intact. COMMERCIAL EXPLOITATION IS NOT ALLOWED.

THIS LEVEL WAS NOT MADE BY AND IS NOT SUPPORTED BY Raven Software.