MAP35: Midnight Tek Frenzy (Community Chest 4)

MAP35: Midnight Tek Frenzy is an Easter egg map of Community Chest 4. It was designed by Brian Knox (Snakes) and uses "Where Iz It?", a music track from Rise of the Triad composed by Lee Jackson. It cannot be reached in normal gameplay; it must be accessed through a command line argument, a cheat code, or a console command depending on source port used to run the WAD. Completing this level will end the game if the port has no MAPINFO support; if it does, the player will be taken to MAP01: Renewed Faith.

The level was released standalone after it failed to make it into the main megawad, but was included as an Easter egg out of sympathy from the project leader (see Inspiration and development).

Walkthrough

 * Letters in italics refer to marked spots on the map. Sector numbers in boldface are secrets which count toward the end-of-level tally.

Secrets

 * 1) In the courtyard with the red skull key, flip the switch that lowers the pillar encasing the switch that lowers the key. Stay on the pillar when it rises up, and jump southward towards the rocks. Head for the rocks that have imps on them, and manuever onto the ledge northwest of the imps' ledge to get some boxes of rockets and energy cell packs. (sector 536)
 * 2) Inside the central building, there's a vent in the southeast corner. Near the plasma gun, hop onto the ledge with the tech column, then sidle around through the vent to obtain a berserk pack and a megaarmor. (sector 578)

Current records
The records for this map at the Doomed Speed Demos Archive are:

Last updated on March 31, 2013.

Miscellaneous Demos
Last updated on March 31, 2013.

Things
This level contains the following numbers of things per skill level:

Technical information
Compared to the standalone release, this level contains fixes for several bugs that were originally present. This included a big slime trail in the center of the level, a lowering sector erroneously split in two, and Hall of Mirrors effects inside certain pillars. It also fixes lighting inconsistencies throughout the level.

The map slots MAP33, MAP34, and MAP35 are playable in PrBoom+ through the command line; the background music used for these maps is the text screen music, the title screen music, and the intermission screen music, respectively. In this port, the music on this level begins with the first few snare hits of the intermission screen music, "The Destiny of Death," before segueing into "Where Iz It?"; this is accomplished using the port's support for MUSINFO, with a "music changer" thing placed in the sector where the player begins the level.

The sky texture for MAP12-20 appears on this level via a linedef action that causes a different sky texture to be shown than normal, even though this is technically not a feature of Boom but of MBF. However, PrBoom+ supports this action when using Boom compatibility levels or higher, because it has been mistaken for a Boom feature for years; this is possibly because of Doom Builder including it in its Boom configuration.

Inspiration and development
The level was designed for inclusion into the main megawad. However, it was not completed on time for the November 16, 2011 deadline imposed for level submissions. Knox eventually finished and published the level on March 22, 2012, as a standalone WAD on the idgames/ archive. When Eric Baker (The Green Herring), the project leader, played the WAD, he felt bad for the author because it would have passed the project's quality check had it been completed and submitted on time; unlike several levels cut from the map roster, it missed inclusion in the project only because it was not finished by the deadline. Consequently, Baker got permission from Knox to include the level in the megawad as an easter egg, with bugfixes performed by them both. To aid in keeping its inclusion secret, this level did not appear in any of the public beta releases.

After the final release of the WAD, the easter egg level was first discovered by Keeper of Jericho, who made a post in the megawad's release thread at Doomworld on August 31, 2012 asking who the author was, despite this information appearing if the player beats the level.

Trivia
The part of the wad directory in which this level is hidden is marked with a lump named "_FNORD". The word "" is associated with satire of conspiracy theories and was popularized by  of novels as a word that children are taught by the to be unable to consciously see.