bounfire

TL;DR: This is a compilation of (almost) all the original HLDM maps into one.

Now for the whole description:
I started a project a few weeks ago, some kind of challenge to mash all Half-Life Deathmatch maps together into some kind of (still playable) frankensteined monstrosity. So went and decompiled them all, and put my rusty mapping skills to work. After a LOT of hurdles (the decompilation process is neither smooth nor clean), I finally managed to put together ten of the eleven maps. I chose Bounce and Crossfire as some kind of skeleton for the maps, and went on connecting the rest from there. Hence the name, Bounfire. Because I like these maps, and also because I enjoy ridiculous puns.

Unfortunately, not all maps are represented equally. One reason is because I enjoy some maps more than others, the other is that the decompilation process was way cleaner on some maps than others, making it substantially easier to integrate large portions. Also, I have tried to keep the parts that I felt were iconic, and on some maps they are tiny (the snark-spewing pipe of snark pit) and sometimes they are quite large (the crate room of stalk yard).

I also tried to keep the maps as untouched as possible, in order to keep the original feel as much as I could. Some areas were cut off, corridors were blocked using blast doors or crates or cliff walls. For some reason most light entities did not decompile, so I ended up redoing a large portion of the lighting in the maps. I added quite a few lamps that weren't there in the original version, and I'm quite pleased with the result. In the end, the map really feels like a whole rather than bits and pieces glued together.

Here's a quick summary of what I did to the maps:

Boot Camp: First of all, I'm not a big fan of that one, so I didn't go out of my way to integrate a large portion. I kept a bit of the outer wall, and part of some kind of street. It's now smoothly integrated into the canyon-like cliff of Bounce, and it's used as a corridor between the crossfire part and the upper part of Subtransit. It also connect to a ventilation shaft that goes to the Bounce canyon. It may even help sneak up to someone sniping with the crossbow up there.

Bounce: This map was the skeleton of the whole thing. Bounfire more or less used the original layout of Bounce, but the "sewer room" and the featureless pipe that goes round were replaced by bits of other maps. And of course Crossfire now takes half of the canyon.

Crossfire: As said before, half the Bounce canyon are now filled with the helipad, towers and bunker part of Crossfire. The tower cannons are fully functional and so is the bunker and its airstrike computers.

Datacore: The Crossfire bunker was entirely replaced with the lobby from Datacore and the two adjacent rooms. The layout is more or less what the Crossfire bunker was, a lobby with health chargers, a way to the two tower bunkers, to the computer room in the back and two ammo room on the side.

Frenzy: Now that's a map I like and I feel I didn't really did justice to. It's used mostly as a corridor, but that's the part I remember best from my childhood. The corridor at the top where one can play king of the hill with his RPG. Unfortunately this part of the gameplay has been erased as the corridor is now linking with the Undertow part of the map. The circular "pit" in the middle is still there though, and it integrated perfectly with Stalk Yard at two different entries without me having to change the layout of either maps. Quite a win.

Lambda Bunker: To me, the iconic part of this map is the cave room with the blast door that says "LAMBDA", and the small pond with a catwalk going into some kind of pipe. I kept the upper part and integrated the rest with a room from Undertow. It isn't 100% faithful to the original (the pond part is gone and there's no longer any pipe), but it integrates very well with the other room and I enjoy the result. Also, I closed off one part of the road with a teleporter that leads near a Crossfire helipad, as a shortcut for going to the bunker, making this part of the map more than just decoration.

Rapid Core: No matter how much I tried, it wouldn't decompile well. So much so that I even gave up integrating that map entirely. But so that it wasn't completely left out, I kept the amazing design for health and energy chargers and put that everywhere on the map.

Snark Pit: That map was hard to integrate properly. It didn't fit anywhere. In the end I decided that the iconic part was the infamous snark spewing pipe, and I put it under one of the concrete structure in the Bounce canyon, making this part of the map even more dangerous.

Stalkyard: One of my favorite maps. Not much to say here. I really enjoy the crate room, I put the crate room and didn't touch anything.

Subtransit: I really like this map and feel like I didn't do it justice either. It connects Bounce and Boot Camp to Stalk Yard. While I feel like the train is the iconic part, I just couldn't integrate a whole train without making the map even bigger, breaking the level design I had in mind and overall pouring even more weeks into that ridiculous project. So I settled for a bit of rail and a bit of underwater part. In the end, I feel like the train reference is there and working, that the corridor isn't too long and that it integrates very well with the rest of the maps.

Undertow: What's iconic about this one? The waterfall and the drowning room. Unfortunately I had nowhere to put a drowning room so I decided to settle with the waterfall. Turns out it integrates well with Bounce, and I even took the liberty of adding a small river at the bottom of the canyon, which looks quite nice if you ask me. Though the current no longer prevents from swimming up the river (except the final waterfall which still pushes you toward the edge), I think the look and feel of that part of the map is there. Also, it integrates fantastically well with Lambda Bunker.

That's it for this map. I hope you enjoy it, and if you are curious please give it a try and give me feedback.