![PAIN[Discontinued]](https://srb2mb-externaldata.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/data/resource_icons/3/3925.jpg?1650577763){kind=icon}
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- Modify: YES - Maintain: YES - I give permission for my entire submission to be modified by others or used in their own work. I give permission for my entire submission to be maintained by others as well.
- I made sure my file(s) follow the Submissions Guidelines
- Yes
- I named my file(s) correctly (see Filename Conventions)
- Yes
Most people will either love or hate this mod. The 2nd half of the levels are kinda like a Kazio mod, but the 1st half of the levels mostly just train you for the later levels.
As of v2.1.0, this level pack contains Special Stages.
4/29/2024 UPDATE: This mod will no longer be updated; instead, this is being re-vamped to become a proper Kaizo mod. The latest SRB2 version that PAIN works properly for is 2.2.10.
WARNING: This mod was made for experienced players. Don't play this mod unless you've at least beaten the base game as Fang, Amy, or Sonic(by himself) without getting a game over, and don't recommend this mod to anyone who hasn't beaten the base game as described.
WARNING: Due to the sheer amounts of objects and/or polyobjects in the levels, NETGAMES WILL CRASH in CEZ2 and possibly DSZ2, and they will lag in DSZ2, ACZ1, ACZ2, RVZ, ERZ1, & ERZ2. However, singleplayer & splitscreen Co-op will work fine for all levels, provided that your graphics card can handle it.
WARNING: Some parts of this mod may lag for computers that don't have a non-integrated graphics card from 2009 or later. Surprisingly, integrated graphics cards from as recently as 2021 aren't nearly as good as non-integrated ones from 2009(at least among what I tested). That said, using the OpenGL Renderer without 3D Models enabled may reduce or eliminate lag, and on a related note, a few parts of the mod will display improperly without the OpenGL Renderer.
WARNING: If you're using Custom Gamedata, then use a save file that saw the credits or one that started in PAIN to play this mod... or else.
WARNING: Large character mods, such as Brak, Kiryu Kazuma, Duke Nukem, and Cacodemon either can't or most likely can't beat this mod, due to how some of PAIN's environmental hazards, some of which are lethal, were designed for characters no taller or wider than Fang the Sniper.
WARNING: Don't combine PAIN(Bosses Only) or PAIN(Special Stages Only) with the regular version of PAIN; these aren't intended to be simultaneously loaded, and will probably break the game or something if both or all are loaded at once.
WARNING: Do NOT speedrun this mod without TASing it; you'll probably wind up in the mental hospital if you do.
To get the entire mod, pick the top download in the list after clicking the DOWNLOAD button.
The 2nd download is just PAIN's bosses, and is intentionally missing some auxiliary features, such as a save file and unlockables, which are only contained in the top download.
The 3rd download is just PAIN's special stages, and is also intentionally missing some auxiliary features, which are only contained in the top download.
PAIN is a mod that adds new versions of SRB2's pre-existing levels that become increasingly PAINful to play as you progress through the game.
Currently, only the Base Levels(GFZ1-BCZ3) and Multiplayer Special Stages are affected; the Multiplayer Special Stages were designated to be the Singleplayer Special Stages, as well as being the Multiplayer ones.
Because of this, all Bonus Stages, Challenge Stages, NiGHTS Special Stages, Match Stages, CTF Stages, and the Tutorial are unaffected by this mod, and will remain unaffected until future versions of PAIN. As for the Tutorial in particular, it'll eventually contain a teleporter to an Advanced Tutorial.
PAIN also adds a new level between GFZ1 and BCZ3, and a new hidden path to ACZ2.
This has been in the works for ~1.5 years prior to its 1st MB release, including its legacy versions.
Heres some .gifs of an old version of PAIN, to give you a quick idea of how ridiculous this mod can get:
(I would've had a solid 35 FPS if I wasn't recording a .gif)
This mod was originally submitted(and approved) on Easter Sunday, 2022, at 11-something P.M., minutes before the MB got hacked, went down, and got rolled back.
This mod makes mainly the game PAINful by adding environmental hazards and enemies to the game, and it abides by the following design philosophies:
-THESE AIN'T TROLL LEVELS; all hazards(that this mod adds) must be assessable to the player the first time the player sees the hazard, and without having to get hurt(at least in theory) to perform the assessment
-the player must never be required to get hurt in order to progress as any vanilla character, so ultimate mode is possible... at least with TAS
-if there's a method of sequence-breaking that's easier than the intended route, then an environmental hazard that may or may not be extra hard should be put over it instead of preventing the player from performing the sequence break altogether; this doesn't mean that tails, knuckles, and metal sonic should be prevented from skipping large swathes of levels if said prevention isn't reasonably possible(let me know if I forgot about this and made a sequence-break outright impossible)
-beyond a few exceptions, all enemy placements & environmental hazards must reasonably fit the level's pre-existing thematics; no flame jets in GFZ, no crushers in CEZ, no lance-a-bots in THZ, no minuses in DSZ, and etc., but ghosts in abandoned temples are fine, you can stick firebars in lava levels, and etc.
-if the player gets very used to playing this mod for some far-fetched reason, the player must be able to go back to the vanilla levels without getting substantially thrown off; as such, there were many things that I couldn't afford to change, such as nearly all level geometry and the locations of all existing monitors, and the function of some of said monitors(non-eggman monitors were never swapped out for eggman monitors; that'd violate an above design philosophy or two)
A PAIN-o-Meter is included with this mod via. subtitles, and reflects the PAIN you're to encounter in that level, and in the following levels that don't have a higher designation on the PAIN-o-Meter. At the start of the mod, the kinds of things that I do to make the mod be more PAINful are limited in number, but become more numerous as you progress through the mod; for example, there ain't less rings until THZ, added environmental hazards are sparse until CEZ, and I didn't start making there be less goalposts until RVZ.
A few important skills that you'll need to beat this mod are bee-dodging and pterabyte-dodging, and if you're playing as Fang, then you'll need to learn jump-shots too.
Getting chased by bees isn't necessarily the end of the world, even if you're playing as Fang; if you're going fast enough, you can basically just ignore bees, even if you can't afford to run at full speed... until you mess up and go too slow, or are forced to be in one place for too long and have to deal with them, which will frequently occur in this mod; even then, however, there are ways to dodge bees without killing them, and you'll just have to figure out what they are.
Speaking of Fang, be warned that Amy, and much moreso Fang, will suffer far, far more in this mod than the other vanilla characters due solely to their not being in a spinning state while jumping, which will result in an immense amount of PAIN during boss fights.
Pterabytes are some pretty bad badniks, but you can definitely weasel your way around them as any vanilla character while you're underneath them. Pterabytes attempt to grab you when you get near(and below) them, but they'll only be successful if they get close enough to you, which you can fix by never being that close to them(while below them) to begin with. Packs of up to 6 pterabytes can be reliably dodged through if you know what you're doing.
Jump-shots are a technique that Fang can use to shoot something without having to stand still for very long after shooting it; it's executed by hitting the Jump button during the same frame as the Spin button, and so, is a relatively easy frame-perfect technique to pull off. Having to wait after shooting every time will likely lead to getting stung by bees if any are around. An example of a jump-shot can be seen in the above .gif of GFZ3.
PAIN allows Level Select to pick either vanilla levels or PAIN's levels; you'll be able to tell the difference between the levels without going there by looking at the Level Select Header, the new Level Select Icons, or how the levels are sorted under the PAIN levels' Level Select Header.
Additional features of this mod include 7 titlescreen demos(more level packs should have these), several Lua scripts, a new route in ACZ2, and a new level. This also comes with a Boss Rush version and a Special-Stage-only version, which only contain the bosses or Special Stages and are intentionally missing some auxiliary features.
Also know that, after beating the game in Singleplayer, that save file will get infinite lives, so feel free to do reckless stuff on that save file if you actually manage to beat the game.
Also included in this mod overview is, well, an overview of the environmental hazards used in PAIN on a zone-by-zone basis, and some other things as well; recall that I want the environmental hazards to fit the themes of the levels that they're placed in, as stated above:
Also included with this release is the legacy(really old) version of PAIN, wherein all I'd done was lazily change the enemies, mostly by putting bees everywhere and sticking pterabytes in "fun" places. I made that version in 2021 for laughs, and some people actually liked it when I hosted netgames with it last year. So as to not confuse people who didn't read the overview into downloading that version instead of the new one, said old version of PAIN, which replaces the relevant vanilla maps, can be found exclusively in this mod's discussion thread. There are minor differences in ERZ1 & BCZ1 from the actual v1.0.6(the latest version I'd hosted prior to this mod getting approved on the MB), however, but the rest of the mod is exactly the same as that version is, backend stuff aside.
Thanks to the official SRB2 discord's #zone-building and #scripting channels for helping me with bits and pieces of the mod, and to the few playtesters for helping me to get this mod to the state that it's in now, and thx to Othius for helping me a bit with BCZ3.
KNOWN BUGS:
#1: NiGHTS mode will refuse to record your best time and best score in the Special Stages, presumably because these are 2.0-style special stages. This also means that I can't make the Special Stages grant time or score emblems. It will record your last replay, at least, so you can at least save that as a guest, and then re-name it to best time if you wanna record a PB in a Special stage.
#2: Transparency issues may be encountered in ERZ1 & ERZ2 if you don't use the OpenGL Renderer, due entirely to the sheer amounts of lasers and transparent FoFs/polyobjects in these levels; as such, it may be difficult to tell what's behind such an object in those levels if you don't use the OpenGL Renderer.
#3(minor): The Multiplayer Boss Reset Chambers will fail to open their door if everyone but offline people are in the door, and then the offline people get kicked(and possibly if their rejoin timeout expires) until either someone commits suicide and respawns, or new joins the game, whether or not that new person is one of said offline players or someone in the chamber who waits out the rejoin timer and then rejoins; the alternative is replacing the All Players, Anywhere in Sector trigger linedef with Floor Touch, All Players, which can lead to Knuckles players preventing the door from opening. Of course, the server's admin can fix this by picking the level in Level Select.
#4(minor): Characters with the power to teleport through walls(such as Kamek) who enter a Multiplayer Boss Respawn Chamber can trigger the goalpost before everyone dies, causing the level to restart if the remaining players kill the boss instead of progressing to the next level.
#5: Getting hit in a Special Stage in a netgame will only cause you, and not other people, to lose time.
#6: The lasers in BCZ3 will slowly desynch over time.
P.S.: if you're one of those guys who make mod showcase videos and actually decide to showcase this for some reason, please include the starting cutscene(even if it's sped up) and don't just showcase the levels before CEZ2, lest people don't get the wrong impression about the utter PAIN in this mod, even if it involves using console commands to warp to specified levels.
As of v2.1.0, this level pack contains Special Stages.
4/29/2024 UPDATE: This mod will no longer be updated; instead, this is being re-vamped to become a proper Kaizo mod. The latest SRB2 version that PAIN works properly for is 2.2.10.
WARNING: This mod was made for experienced players. Don't play this mod unless you've at least beaten the base game as Fang, Amy, or Sonic(by himself) without getting a game over, and don't recommend this mod to anyone who hasn't beaten the base game as described.
WARNING: Due to the sheer amounts of objects and/or polyobjects in the levels, NETGAMES WILL CRASH in CEZ2 and possibly DSZ2, and they will lag in DSZ2, ACZ1, ACZ2, RVZ, ERZ1, & ERZ2. However, singleplayer & splitscreen Co-op will work fine for all levels, provided that your graphics card can handle it.
WARNING: Some parts of this mod may lag for computers that don't have a non-integrated graphics card from 2009 or later. Surprisingly, integrated graphics cards from as recently as 2021 aren't nearly as good as non-integrated ones from 2009(at least among what I tested). That said, using the OpenGL Renderer without 3D Models enabled may reduce or eliminate lag, and on a related note, a few parts of the mod will display improperly without the OpenGL Renderer.
WARNING: If you're using Custom Gamedata, then use a save file that saw the credits or one that started in PAIN to play this mod... or else.
WARNING: Large character mods, such as Brak, Kiryu Kazuma, Duke Nukem, and Cacodemon either can't or most likely can't beat this mod, due to how some of PAIN's environmental hazards, some of which are lethal, were designed for characters no taller or wider than Fang the Sniper.
WARNING: Don't combine PAIN(Bosses Only) or PAIN(Special Stages Only) with the regular version of PAIN; these aren't intended to be simultaneously loaded, and will probably break the game or something if both or all are loaded at once.
WARNING: Do NOT speedrun this mod without TASing it; you'll probably wind up in the mental hospital if you do.
To get the entire mod, pick the top download in the list after clicking the DOWNLOAD button.
The 2nd download is just PAIN's bosses, and is intentionally missing some auxiliary features, such as a save file and unlockables, which are only contained in the top download.
The 3rd download is just PAIN's special stages, and is also intentionally missing some auxiliary features, which are only contained in the top download.
PAIN is a mod that adds new versions of SRB2's pre-existing levels that become increasingly PAINful to play as you progress through the game.
Currently, only the Base Levels(GFZ1-BCZ3) and Multiplayer Special Stages are affected; the Multiplayer Special Stages were designated to be the Singleplayer Special Stages, as well as being the Multiplayer ones.
Because of this, all Bonus Stages, Challenge Stages, NiGHTS Special Stages, Match Stages, CTF Stages, and the Tutorial are unaffected by this mod, and will remain unaffected until future versions of PAIN. As for the Tutorial in particular, it'll eventually contain a teleporter to an Advanced Tutorial.
PAIN also adds a new level between GFZ1 and BCZ3, and a new hidden path to ACZ2.
This has been in the works for ~1.5 years prior to its 1st MB release, including its legacy versions.
Heres some .gifs of an old version of PAIN, to give you a quick idea of how ridiculous this mod can get:
(I would've had a solid 35 FPS if I wasn't recording a .gif)
This mod was originally submitted(and approved) on Easter Sunday, 2022, at 11-something P.M., minutes before the MB got hacked, went down, and got rolled back.
This mod makes mainly the game PAINful by adding environmental hazards and enemies to the game, and it abides by the following design philosophies:
-THESE AIN'T TROLL LEVELS; all hazards(that this mod adds) must be assessable to the player the first time the player sees the hazard, and without having to get hurt(at least in theory) to perform the assessment
-the player must never be required to get hurt in order to progress as any vanilla character, so ultimate mode is possible... at least with TAS
-if there's a method of sequence-breaking that's easier than the intended route, then an environmental hazard that may or may not be extra hard should be put over it instead of preventing the player from performing the sequence break altogether; this doesn't mean that tails, knuckles, and metal sonic should be prevented from skipping large swathes of levels if said prevention isn't reasonably possible(let me know if I forgot about this and made a sequence-break outright impossible)
-beyond a few exceptions, all enemy placements & environmental hazards must reasonably fit the level's pre-existing thematics; no flame jets in GFZ, no crushers in CEZ, no lance-a-bots in THZ, no minuses in DSZ, and etc., but ghosts in abandoned temples are fine, you can stick firebars in lava levels, and etc.
-if the player gets very used to playing this mod for some far-fetched reason, the player must be able to go back to the vanilla levels without getting substantially thrown off; as such, there were many things that I couldn't afford to change, such as nearly all level geometry and the locations of all existing monitors, and the function of some of said monitors(non-eggman monitors were never swapped out for eggman monitors; that'd violate an above design philosophy or two)
A PAIN-o-Meter is included with this mod via. subtitles, and reflects the PAIN you're to encounter in that level, and in the following levels that don't have a higher designation on the PAIN-o-Meter. At the start of the mod, the kinds of things that I do to make the mod be more PAINful are limited in number, but become more numerous as you progress through the mod; for example, there ain't less rings until THZ, added environmental hazards are sparse until CEZ, and I didn't start making there be less goalposts until RVZ.
A few important skills that you'll need to beat this mod are bee-dodging and pterabyte-dodging, and if you're playing as Fang, then you'll need to learn jump-shots too.
Getting chased by bees isn't necessarily the end of the world, even if you're playing as Fang; if you're going fast enough, you can basically just ignore bees, even if you can't afford to run at full speed... until you mess up and go too slow, or are forced to be in one place for too long and have to deal with them, which will frequently occur in this mod; even then, however, there are ways to dodge bees without killing them, and you'll just have to figure out what they are.
Speaking of Fang, be warned that Amy, and much moreso Fang, will suffer far, far more in this mod than the other vanilla characters due solely to their not being in a spinning state while jumping, which will result in an immense amount of PAIN during boss fights.
Pterabytes are some pretty bad badniks, but you can definitely weasel your way around them as any vanilla character while you're underneath them. Pterabytes attempt to grab you when you get near(and below) them, but they'll only be successful if they get close enough to you, which you can fix by never being that close to them(while below them) to begin with. Packs of up to 6 pterabytes can be reliably dodged through if you know what you're doing.
Jump-shots are a technique that Fang can use to shoot something without having to stand still for very long after shooting it; it's executed by hitting the Jump button during the same frame as the Spin button, and so, is a relatively easy frame-perfect technique to pull off. Having to wait after shooting every time will likely lead to getting stung by bees if any are around. An example of a jump-shot can be seen in the above .gif of GFZ3.
PAIN allows Level Select to pick either vanilla levels or PAIN's levels; you'll be able to tell the difference between the levels without going there by looking at the Level Select Header, the new Level Select Icons, or how the levels are sorted under the PAIN levels' Level Select Header.
Additional features of this mod include 7 titlescreen demos(more level packs should have these), several Lua scripts, a new route in ACZ2, and a new level. This also comes with a Boss Rush version and a Special-Stage-only version, which only contain the bosses or Special Stages and are intentionally missing some auxiliary features.
Also know that, after beating the game in Singleplayer, that save file will get infinite lives, so feel free to do reckless stuff on that save file if you actually manage to beat the game.
Also included in this mod overview is, well, an overview of the environmental hazards used in PAIN on a zone-by-zone basis, and some other things as well; recall that I want the environmental hazards to fit the themes of the levels that they're placed in, as stated above:
That is, environmental hazards that are allowed in all zones; this doesn't mean that all zones have these environmental hazards.
-Spikes: Spikes are limited in their capabilities since they can be broken by Amy and Metal Sonic, and Fang can just bounce on them, though Metal Sonic will have a harder time breaking them due to there being bees in most parts of most levels. These can also serve to prevent players from rushing forwards without hurting them, provided that the player isn't jumping or falling, like just before the bridge after the space section in ERZ2 that you can skip as tails in vanilla. Another thing that you can do with spikes is to lay down a bed of spikes and put one or more pterabytes above them, threatening the hit to player with spikes after grabbling the player, or to lay a bed spikes on the ground that retracts in a wave.
-Wall Spikes: Wall Spikes are like Spikes, except you can use the sides of them for platforming, and Fang can't just ignore them by bouncing on, well, their pointy parts.
-Springs: Springs have limited uses as environmental hazards; for nitpicky reasons, I'd much prefer to never use spring balls, except as a last resort. Making Custom Maces out of these will always break thematics, and is not allowed outside of the Multiplayer Reset Chambers, wherein they exist to prevent people from all being stacked on the same fracunit to at least alleviate a potential source of lag. However, you may place Chained Springs in CEZ1, CEZ2, & HHZ, though I never did that in CEZ1/2, and I haven't done HHZ yet.
-Eggman Monitors: These are one-time-use hazards, and can be damage-boosted through with particular ease. I didn't use these in any of PAIN's levels, not counting the vanilla ones being kept in the levels.
-Golden Eggman Monitors: These are re-usable hazards, and while a few interesting things can be done with them, their potential is limited. One of the more interesting things that you can do with these is placing them next to spikes to prevent Amy and Metal Sonic players from breaking the spikes, and another interesting thing to do with them is placing 2 of them right next to a stationary enemy, such as a Pop-Up Turret, to prevent Fang players from killing the enemy. Do be warned, however, that each monitor emits alotta sparkles, so placing more than 20 of these within a player's line of sight might cause the renderer to hit the object limit and start refusing to render random objects, potentially including the player, not to mention the lag caused by there being so many objects on-screen at once.
-Spikes: Spikes are limited in their capabilities since they can be broken by Amy and Metal Sonic, and Fang can just bounce on them, though Metal Sonic will have a harder time breaking them due to there being bees in most parts of most levels. These can also serve to prevent players from rushing forwards without hurting them, provided that the player isn't jumping or falling, like just before the bridge after the space section in ERZ2 that you can skip as tails in vanilla. Another thing that you can do with spikes is to lay down a bed of spikes and put one or more pterabytes above them, threatening the hit to player with spikes after grabbling the player, or to lay a bed spikes on the ground that retracts in a wave.
-Wall Spikes: Wall Spikes are like Spikes, except you can use the sides of them for platforming, and Fang can't just ignore them by bouncing on, well, their pointy parts.
-Springs: Springs have limited uses as environmental hazards; for nitpicky reasons, I'd much prefer to never use spring balls, except as a last resort. Making Custom Maces out of these will always break thematics, and is not allowed outside of the Multiplayer Reset Chambers, wherein they exist to prevent people from all being stacked on the same fracunit to at least alleviate a potential source of lag. However, you may place Chained Springs in CEZ1, CEZ2, & HHZ, though I never did that in CEZ1/2, and I haven't done HHZ yet.
-Eggman Monitors: These are one-time-use hazards, and can be damage-boosted through with particular ease. I didn't use these in any of PAIN's levels, not counting the vanilla ones being kept in the levels.
-Golden Eggman Monitors: These are re-usable hazards, and while a few interesting things can be done with them, their potential is limited. One of the more interesting things that you can do with these is placing them next to spikes to prevent Amy and Metal Sonic players from breaking the spikes, and another interesting thing to do with them is placing 2 of them right next to a stationary enemy, such as a Pop-Up Turret, to prevent Fang players from killing the enemy. Do be warned, however, that each monitor emits alotta sparkles, so placing more than 20 of these within a player's line of sight might cause the renderer to hit the object limit and start refusing to render random objects, potentially including the player, not to mention the lag caused by there being so many objects on-screen at once.
Seeing as how vanilla GFZ's hazards were rather limited, the available hazards were restricted to those available in all zones, with the sole exception of moving polyobjects. GFZ2 contains a single thin polyobject crusher with spikes on top, while all other hazards in GFZ1/2 are in the All Zones category.
Note that environmental hazards are sparse in GFZ since the PAIN-o-Meter is very low around there, and for the same reason, I allowed players to sequence-break past some environmental hazards.
On the related subject of enemies, I also got to upgrade most Blue Crawlas into Red Crawlas.
Note that environmental hazards are sparse in GFZ since the PAIN-o-Meter is very low around there, and for the same reason, I allowed players to sequence-break past some environmental hazards.
On the related subject of enemies, I also got to upgrade most Blue Crawlas into Red Crawlas.
Vanilla THZ has Crushers, allowing me to use both Vertical Crushers and Horizontal Crushers in PAIN's THZ, in addition to hazards available in all zones. Vanilla THZ also contains electrified floors, but these hazards are especially cheap in most of their applications, so I tried not to use many of these.
Note that environmental hazards are sparse in these levels since the PAIN-o-Meter is so low around there.
On the related subject of enemies, I also got to upgrade most Gold Buzzes into Red Buzzes.
-Vertical Crushers: A relatively boring hazard, but it gets the job done; if the player gets hit by this, the player will simply die, so you can't just damage-boost past it.
-Horizontal Crushers: These can be used in the place of Vertical Crushers to add a bit of variety, but for some reason or the other, these may be invisible when using the Software Renderer(at least when they're thick), so I didn't add any.
-Electrified Floors: I couldn't think of many good applications for these hazards, if any at all, that didn't involve the very cheap move of sticking a pterabyte over it, so going off of memory, I put very few of these, if any at all, in PAIN, not counting the ones that exist in vanilla. Attraction Shields and Electric Shields will make you immune to Electrified Floors.
-Turrets: Turrets are stationary enemies that can only be killed by Vertical Crushers, and will shoot at you for 3 seconds, stop for 1 second(not 3 like in vanilla) and then repeat the cycle. Turrets can be used as environmental hazards, but I only thought of 1 good application for them that felt fair, so I just left the ones in vanilla and added a single new one in PAIN. These also thematically fit in ERZ and BCZ, but I didn't put any there. Beware that Turrets can hurt other enemies, that Turrets don't go so well with bees, and that their range isn't as long as you'd expect.
Note that environmental hazards are sparse in these levels since the PAIN-o-Meter is so low around there.
On the related subject of enemies, I also got to upgrade most Gold Buzzes into Red Buzzes.
-Vertical Crushers: A relatively boring hazard, but it gets the job done; if the player gets hit by this, the player will simply die, so you can't just damage-boost past it.
-Horizontal Crushers: These can be used in the place of Vertical Crushers to add a bit of variety, but for some reason or the other, these may be invisible when using the Software Renderer(at least when they're thick), so I didn't add any.
-Electrified Floors: I couldn't think of many good applications for these hazards, if any at all, that didn't involve the very cheap move of sticking a pterabyte over it, so going off of memory, I put very few of these, if any at all, in PAIN, not counting the ones that exist in vanilla. Attraction Shields and Electric Shields will make you immune to Electrified Floors.
-Turrets: Turrets are stationary enemies that can only be killed by Vertical Crushers, and will shoot at you for 3 seconds, stop for 1 second(not 3 like in vanilla) and then repeat the cycle. Turrets can be used as environmental hazards, but I only thought of 1 good application for them that felt fair, so I just left the ones in vanilla and added a single new one in PAIN. These also thematically fit in ERZ and BCZ, but I didn't put any there. Beware that Turrets can hurt other enemies, that Turrets don't go so well with bees, and that their range isn't as long as you'd expect.
Vanilla DSZ also has Crushers, so PAIN's DSZ has plenty of crushers. It also has Big Floating Mines, but those aren't re-usable hazards, so I didn't place any new ones in PAIN. I also took a liberty and added Glaregoyles to DSZ2 since they wouldn't break the thematics of DSZ.
Note that environmental hazards are sparse in these levels since the PAIN-o-Meter is so low around there.
-Big Floating Mines: These are technically enemies, and threaten to slow down and potentially hurt the player if the player touches them, or just hurt the player if the player gets too close. If a Crushtacean punches one, then it'll move the Big Floating Mine with it, as you may have noticed in vanilla. Their explosions can also trigger Blast Linedef Executors. As mentioned above, no new Big Floating Mines were placed in PAIN.
-Water: Water forces you to go fast until you reach a bubble or the surface, and since PAIN's DSZ1/2 contains underwater bees & pterabytes, and since many bubbles were removed from those levels with scrutiny, many parts of DSZ1/2 force you to move fairly quickly without stopping. If not for the water in those levels, DSZ1 and DSZ2, respectively, would go from a 3/10 and 4/10 on the PAIN-o-Meter, to a 2/10 and 3/10 on the PAIN-o-Meter.
-Glaregoyles: Glaregoyles shoot cursed fire, which doesn't go out underwater, in front of them at certain intervals of time; they're limited in their usefulness when they aren't put in constrained areas, as demonstrated by the bouncing Glaregoyle hazard in DSZ2. Glaregoyles should usually be given the Not Pushable Flag if you don't want the player moving them out of the player's way. You could instead opt to place Glaregoyles over springs, which requires them lacking the Not Pushable Flag, and can form interesting environmental hazards, though they're rather ineffective outside of narrow spaces, and if players reach them, then they can simply move the Glaregoyles elsewhere, though actually doing so may be more trouble than simply avoiding their cursed fire. If placing them over springs, you can fit 2 on the same spring by putting one of them on one side of a spring, and the other on the other side of the spring, provided that both of them won't be horizontally moved. Glaregoyles take a bit to start firing, so you may wish not to put them right in front of a Starpost; speaking of which, I'd love to put alot of them right in front of the start of DSZ2, such that the player wouldn't by hit if the player didn't move onto the slope in front of the player spawns, but the Glaregoyles would take so long to start firing that just holding forwards as Amy & Fang would dodge all of the Glaregoyles every time.
-Other Notable Mentions: On waterslides, no new ones of which were added in PAIN, you can jump and push the backwards movement button to slow down. I also got to add Spinboberts to DSZ1/2 since they're both ancient abandoned temples, which means that their being haunted isn't unreasonable. They were mainly placed on waterslides, causing the player to have to avoid them.
Note that environmental hazards are sparse in these levels since the PAIN-o-Meter is so low around there.
-Big Floating Mines: These are technically enemies, and threaten to slow down and potentially hurt the player if the player touches them, or just hurt the player if the player gets too close. If a Crushtacean punches one, then it'll move the Big Floating Mine with it, as you may have noticed in vanilla. Their explosions can also trigger Blast Linedef Executors. As mentioned above, no new Big Floating Mines were placed in PAIN.
-Water: Water forces you to go fast until you reach a bubble or the surface, and since PAIN's DSZ1/2 contains underwater bees & pterabytes, and since many bubbles were removed from those levels with scrutiny, many parts of DSZ1/2 force you to move fairly quickly without stopping. If not for the water in those levels, DSZ1 and DSZ2, respectively, would go from a 3/10 and 4/10 on the PAIN-o-Meter, to a 2/10 and 3/10 on the PAIN-o-Meter.
-Glaregoyles: Glaregoyles shoot cursed fire, which doesn't go out underwater, in front of them at certain intervals of time; they're limited in their usefulness when they aren't put in constrained areas, as demonstrated by the bouncing Glaregoyle hazard in DSZ2. Glaregoyles should usually be given the Not Pushable Flag if you don't want the player moving them out of the player's way. You could instead opt to place Glaregoyles over springs, which requires them lacking the Not Pushable Flag, and can form interesting environmental hazards, though they're rather ineffective outside of narrow spaces, and if players reach them, then they can simply move the Glaregoyles elsewhere, though actually doing so may be more trouble than simply avoiding their cursed fire. If placing them over springs, you can fit 2 on the same spring by putting one of them on one side of a spring, and the other on the other side of the spring, provided that both of them won't be horizontally moved. Glaregoyles take a bit to start firing, so you may wish not to put them right in front of a Starpost; speaking of which, I'd love to put alot of them right in front of the start of DSZ2, such that the player wouldn't by hit if the player didn't move onto the slope in front of the player spawns, but the Glaregoyles would take so long to start firing that just holding forwards as Amy & Fang would dodge all of the Glaregoyles every time.
-Other Notable Mentions: On waterslides, no new ones of which were added in PAIN, you can jump and push the backwards movement button to slow down. I also got to add Spinboberts to DSZ1/2 since they're both ancient abandoned temples, which means that their being haunted isn't unreasonable. They were mainly placed on waterslides, causing the player to have to avoid them.
Vanilla CEZ contains no Crushers, but it does contain Bramble pits, Maces, and Chained Springs. I'd opted to not use the Chained Springs, however, though I could probably stand to replace a few Maces with said Chained Springs with ceiling spikes above them to add some variety, and I might do so in a later version of PAIN.
-Bramble pits: Like THZ's Electrified Floors, except no shield makes you immune to their damage. Usually, all you can really do with this is to stick a pterabyte over it, but that makes for a very cheap hazard.
-Maces: Maces are a hazard that you can do some creative things with. Make sure that they're at least implied to be attached to something other than thin air, such as a Crawla Statue, a wall, or an implied string of Stationary Maces that itself is attached to a wall.
-Chained Springs: Maces, except they're made out of Yellow Spring Balls, or red ones if you check the Ambush Flag. Checking the Flip Flag will make them point upside-down. Chained Springs can threaten the player by putting the player is an undesirable location if they aren't avoided, such as a pit of Brambles, a death pit, or a bunch of Spikes on the ceiling.
-Custom Maces: Custom Maces are Maces that replace the actual mace objects with any object of your choosing. This can have strange and crazy behaviors that may or may not crash the game, depending upon which objects you make the Custom Maces out of. All objects spawned by Custom Maces will have an Angle and parameter of 0. A few Dragonbomber Custom Maces were used in a certain level after CEZ, and a single Hive Elemental Custom Mace was used with a Culling Plane in BCZ2 to make it seem like bees are coming from up the elevator shaft.
-Stationary Maces: Like Maces, except they're on the floor and don't move; I didn't place any of these in CEZ. Because TNT Barrels aren't re-usable, these replaced all TNT barrels on the Minecart Tracks in ACZ2, and many were added to said Minecart Tracks in ACZ2.
-Torch Brackets: Torch Brackets are tangible pillars with fire over them, and touching said fire can hurt you. Off the top of my head, only a few of these were added to PAIN, and only to serve as an object for Maces to swing from. Elemental Shields and Flame Shields will make you immune to their fire.
-Spectator Eggrobos: These very re-usable environmental hazards serve to prevent the player from going to or near a location by knocking the player in the direction of its angle if the player gets too close. However, these couldn't thematically be placed outside of CEZ3, and no new ones were added to CEZ3 since the bleachers were already filled with them. As such, no new Spectator Eggrobos were added to PAIN.
Other Notable Mentions: Egg guards pose a threat to the player when used properly, threatening to bonk you off of a tall platform, into spikes, or at least slow you down if you can't dodge them fast enough, causing bees to be more of a threat. A bunch of extra Egg Guards were placed in CEZ1, and even more were placed in CEZ2.
-Bramble pits: Like THZ's Electrified Floors, except no shield makes you immune to their damage. Usually, all you can really do with this is to stick a pterabyte over it, but that makes for a very cheap hazard.
-Maces: Maces are a hazard that you can do some creative things with. Make sure that they're at least implied to be attached to something other than thin air, such as a Crawla Statue, a wall, or an implied string of Stationary Maces that itself is attached to a wall.
-Chained Springs: Maces, except they're made out of Yellow Spring Balls, or red ones if you check the Ambush Flag. Checking the Flip Flag will make them point upside-down. Chained Springs can threaten the player by putting the player is an undesirable location if they aren't avoided, such as a pit of Brambles, a death pit, or a bunch of Spikes on the ceiling.
-Custom Maces: Custom Maces are Maces that replace the actual mace objects with any object of your choosing. This can have strange and crazy behaviors that may or may not crash the game, depending upon which objects you make the Custom Maces out of. All objects spawned by Custom Maces will have an Angle and parameter of 0. A few Dragonbomber Custom Maces were used in a certain level after CEZ, and a single Hive Elemental Custom Mace was used with a Culling Plane in BCZ2 to make it seem like bees are coming from up the elevator shaft.
-Stationary Maces: Like Maces, except they're on the floor and don't move; I didn't place any of these in CEZ. Because TNT Barrels aren't re-usable, these replaced all TNT barrels on the Minecart Tracks in ACZ2, and many were added to said Minecart Tracks in ACZ2.
-Torch Brackets: Torch Brackets are tangible pillars with fire over them, and touching said fire can hurt you. Off the top of my head, only a few of these were added to PAIN, and only to serve as an object for Maces to swing from. Elemental Shields and Flame Shields will make you immune to their fire.
-Spectator Eggrobos: These very re-usable environmental hazards serve to prevent the player from going to or near a location by knocking the player in the direction of its angle if the player gets too close. However, these couldn't thematically be placed outside of CEZ3, and no new ones were added to CEZ3 since the bleachers were already filled with them. As such, no new Spectator Eggrobos were added to PAIN.
Other Notable Mentions: Egg guards pose a threat to the player when used properly, threatening to bonk you off of a tall platform, into spikes, or at least slow you down if you can't dodge them fast enough, causing bees to be more of a threat. A bunch of extra Egg Guards were placed in CEZ1, and even more were placed in CEZ2.
Vanilla ACZ contains Cacti & TNT. However, because, it'd thematically fit the level, I could also add Rock Spawners to ACZ. ACZ also features Oil, though it's mostly in ACZ2, so I didn't add any Oil to ACZ1.
-TNT Barrels: These explode if you or something else deals damage to them. They can be moved around by Minuses without blowing them up, causing the Minus to be much more of a threat than it'd otherwise be. TNT barrels can cause chain reactions that can quickly spiral out of control if they were placed properly. Off the top of my head, I think I only added 1 of these to PAIN.
-TNT Proximity Shells: These blow up if you get anywhere near them, but aren't re-usable. None were added to PAIN.
-Cacti: Cacti come in many sizes, but they can only be placed outdoors, where they'll get the sunlight that they need. Cacti hurt you whenever you touch them, and are often found in clusters in PAIN. PAIN will often expect you to navigate through or around fields of cacti, even if it means walking on adjacent fences to avoid them.
-Rock Spawners: Rock Spawners are a very useful hazard that spawns rocks that go in a single direction, but unfortunately, has no potential starting delay. Rock Spawners are used throughout ACZ1/2 to pose a hazard to the player by, well, threatening to hurt the player if the player touches a rock. Thematically, Rock Spawners may only be placed such that the rocks originate from pre-existing stone, such as stone walls or a stone ceiling.
WARNING: Placing even a single Rock Spawner in such a manner that their Rocks end up on slopes and never leave the slopes(including an intersection between an upwards slope and a downwards slope) will cause the Rocks to never despawn, which will cause compounding amounts of FPS lag(and even more Internet lag) until the FPS slows down to a crawl and then the game crashes. I made very sure that this didn't happen anywhere in PAIN, and even went so far as to slightly adjust a few bits of level geometry to make sure of this. Also be sure not to let a Rock meander down a slope for too long, or else it'll take far too long for the Rock to despawn, threatening to cause a limited amount of lag and make the renderer hit the object limit when the player sees them. You should be able to easily test if this'll happen by typing "showfps 1" in the console, turning on god mode, going AFK for 5-15 minutes, and then coming back and seeing if the FPS is doing fine or not.
-Oil: Oil is slippery, and threatens to make the player move to an unintended location, such as an enemy, Spikes, a TNT barrel, Cacti, or a death pit. Make sure that all Oil originates from a nearby Oil Barrel, and that if it'd reasonably run off of ledges, it'll create an Oilfall at said ledges, which means that you'll wanna cause the ledge's sidedef to have an Oilfall texture and have the Not Climbable Flag, as well as causing the floor beneath said ledge, if not a death pit, to itself have some amount of Oil originating from the sidedefs with the Oilfall textures. As mentioned above, no new Oil was placed in ACZ1.
WARNING: Placing too much Oil(or Oilfalls) in one room will cause lag for some reason that probably involves its textures being animated.
-TNT Barrels: These explode if you or something else deals damage to them. They can be moved around by Minuses without blowing them up, causing the Minus to be much more of a threat than it'd otherwise be. TNT barrels can cause chain reactions that can quickly spiral out of control if they were placed properly. Off the top of my head, I think I only added 1 of these to PAIN.
-TNT Proximity Shells: These blow up if you get anywhere near them, but aren't re-usable. None were added to PAIN.
-Cacti: Cacti come in many sizes, but they can only be placed outdoors, where they'll get the sunlight that they need. Cacti hurt you whenever you touch them, and are often found in clusters in PAIN. PAIN will often expect you to navigate through or around fields of cacti, even if it means walking on adjacent fences to avoid them.
-Rock Spawners: Rock Spawners are a very useful hazard that spawns rocks that go in a single direction, but unfortunately, has no potential starting delay. Rock Spawners are used throughout ACZ1/2 to pose a hazard to the player by, well, threatening to hurt the player if the player touches a rock. Thematically, Rock Spawners may only be placed such that the rocks originate from pre-existing stone, such as stone walls or a stone ceiling.
WARNING: Placing even a single Rock Spawner in such a manner that their Rocks end up on slopes and never leave the slopes(including an intersection between an upwards slope and a downwards slope) will cause the Rocks to never despawn, which will cause compounding amounts of FPS lag(and even more Internet lag) until the FPS slows down to a crawl and then the game crashes. I made very sure that this didn't happen anywhere in PAIN, and even went so far as to slightly adjust a few bits of level geometry to make sure of this. Also be sure not to let a Rock meander down a slope for too long, or else it'll take far too long for the Rock to despawn, threatening to cause a limited amount of lag and make the renderer hit the object limit when the player sees them. You should be able to easily test if this'll happen by typing "showfps 1" in the console, turning on god mode, going AFK for 5-15 minutes, and then coming back and seeing if the FPS is doing fine or not.
-Oil: Oil is slippery, and threatens to make the player move to an unintended location, such as an enemy, Spikes, a TNT barrel, Cacti, or a death pit. Make sure that all Oil originates from a nearby Oil Barrel, and that if it'd reasonably run off of ledges, it'll create an Oilfall at said ledges, which means that you'll wanna cause the ledge's sidedef to have an Oilfall texture and have the Not Climbable Flag, as well as causing the floor beneath said ledge, if not a death pit, to itself have some amount of Oil originating from the sidedefs with the Oilfall textures. As mentioned above, no new Oil was placed in ACZ1.
WARNING: Placing too much Oil(or Oilfalls) in one room will cause lag for some reason that probably involves its textures being animated.
RVZ has alotta hazards in vanilla, so I had plenty of options for environmental hazards in this level, and I could add even more thanks to the existence of Firebars and Rock Spawners.
-Rock Spawners: There weren't many of these added to RVZ. See the section on ACZ for more information.
-Lava: Lava hurts the player and melts any rings that you spill, serving to make it relatively difficult to damage-boost through the level. Lava can also fall from the ceiling, which can potentially crush(and instantly kill) the player; note that giving Lavafalls an angle of -30 or lower will cause the Lavafalls to never dispense their lava, allowing them to be decoratively used for Continuously Falling Floors of Lava, while giving them a negative angle between -1 and -29 will reduce their starting delay, allowing them to be used at about a second's worth of distance in front of Starposts, but not much closer than that; consider Sonic when determining said distance. Elemental Shields and Flame Shields will make you immune to Lava, but there aren't any of said shields in RVZ(I changed the relevant emblem room).
-Flame Jets: Flame Jets don't activate immediately, and for this reason, shouldn't be placed a few seconds' worth of distance in front of Starposts. Know that Flame Jets have surprisingly thin hitboxes, so you might be able to go between them without getting hurt if they appear to be close enough together that you can't go between them without getting hurt, but it'll take some precision to pull off. Giving them a negative angle will make them fire infinitely after they start firing. Elemental Shields and Flame Shields will make you immune to Flame Jets. Make sure that all Flame Jets originate from a location that makes sense, such as a wall or pillar of Lava, or any location from vanilla RVZ. Be warned that Flame Jets will hurt enemies upon contact, including even Pyre Flies.
-Torch Flowers: Torch Brackets, except you can't thematically spin Maces around them. I question if I'd placed any in PAIN's RVZ that didn't exist in vanilla. For more information, see Torch Brackets in the section on CEZ.
-Spinning Flame Jets: Spinning Flame Jets are like Flame Jets, except they spin horizontally.
-Lavafalls: Lavafalls make a limited amount of "lava" fall from the ceiling fall at set intervals of time. This particular lava won't melt your rings, but it'll still hurt you. Elemental Shields and Flame Shields will make you immune to Lavafalls. Giving these the Flip flag will not make them fall up-side down(I think), at least in 2.2.8. Make sure that the "lava" comes from and goes to thematically-reasonable locations; for example, you don't want the lava falling onto solid ground, lest the player wonder why lava hasn't pooled up there.
WARNING: Lavafalls produce alot of objects when they drop their lava; don't use them in clusters unless they're small clusters, lest they cause severe lag and cause the renderer to hit the object limit.
-Pumas: Coming straight out of the Mario IP, these are Stupid Dumb Unnamed Robofish, except they're made of fire and you can't kill them, and attempting to deal melee damage to them will result in you getting hurt. In 2.2.8, and possibly later, Pumas could only jump so high, such that giving them an angle greater than 107 will result in them not jumping at all. In some situations, they may or may not be able to jump higher, and might not even be able to jump to the height dictated by an angle of 107. I've recently learned that putting Pumas on slopes can have interesting results, though I'd unfortunately learned of this after releasing PAIN. Elemental Shields and Flame Shields will make you immune to Pumas. Giving these the Flip flag will not make them jump upside-down, at least in 2.2.8. Make sure that the first and last thing that these things land in is Lava.
-Firebars: Coming straight out of the Mario IP, these are just Maces that don't hurt you if you have an Elemental Shield or a Flame Shield. These can thematically be used to look like big Pumas that don't just jump up and down, meaning that the chain links are MT_NULL, with the only Firebar being at the end of the chain. These may also be thematically placed in PTZ in any place where it'd make sense in a real Mario level, though I haven't gotten around to changing PTZ yet. Outside of Mario levels, make sure that these come from and go to Lava.
WARNING: Each Firebar creates many decorative objects that persist for a few seconds as they move around; placing too many of these in one location may cause the player's renderer to hit the object limit, and may cause the game to lag.
-Rock Spawners: There weren't many of these added to RVZ. See the section on ACZ for more information.
-Lava: Lava hurts the player and melts any rings that you spill, serving to make it relatively difficult to damage-boost through the level. Lava can also fall from the ceiling, which can potentially crush(and instantly kill) the player; note that giving Lavafalls an angle of -30 or lower will cause the Lavafalls to never dispense their lava, allowing them to be decoratively used for Continuously Falling Floors of Lava, while giving them a negative angle between -1 and -29 will reduce their starting delay, allowing them to be used at about a second's worth of distance in front of Starposts, but not much closer than that; consider Sonic when determining said distance. Elemental Shields and Flame Shields will make you immune to Lava, but there aren't any of said shields in RVZ(I changed the relevant emblem room).
-Flame Jets: Flame Jets don't activate immediately, and for this reason, shouldn't be placed a few seconds' worth of distance in front of Starposts. Know that Flame Jets have surprisingly thin hitboxes, so you might be able to go between them without getting hurt if they appear to be close enough together that you can't go between them without getting hurt, but it'll take some precision to pull off. Giving them a negative angle will make them fire infinitely after they start firing. Elemental Shields and Flame Shields will make you immune to Flame Jets. Make sure that all Flame Jets originate from a location that makes sense, such as a wall or pillar of Lava, or any location from vanilla RVZ. Be warned that Flame Jets will hurt enemies upon contact, including even Pyre Flies.
-Torch Flowers: Torch Brackets, except you can't thematically spin Maces around them. I question if I'd placed any in PAIN's RVZ that didn't exist in vanilla. For more information, see Torch Brackets in the section on CEZ.
-Spinning Flame Jets: Spinning Flame Jets are like Flame Jets, except they spin horizontally.
-Lavafalls: Lavafalls make a limited amount of "lava" fall from the ceiling fall at set intervals of time. This particular lava won't melt your rings, but it'll still hurt you. Elemental Shields and Flame Shields will make you immune to Lavafalls. Giving these the Flip flag will not make them fall up-side down(I think), at least in 2.2.8. Make sure that the "lava" comes from and goes to thematically-reasonable locations; for example, you don't want the lava falling onto solid ground, lest the player wonder why lava hasn't pooled up there.
WARNING: Lavafalls produce alot of objects when they drop their lava; don't use them in clusters unless they're small clusters, lest they cause severe lag and cause the renderer to hit the object limit.
-Pumas: Coming straight out of the Mario IP, these are Stupid Dumb Unnamed Robofish, except they're made of fire and you can't kill them, and attempting to deal melee damage to them will result in you getting hurt. In 2.2.8, and possibly later, Pumas could only jump so high, such that giving them an angle greater than 107 will result in them not jumping at all. In some situations, they may or may not be able to jump higher, and might not even be able to jump to the height dictated by an angle of 107. I've recently learned that putting Pumas on slopes can have interesting results, though I'd unfortunately learned of this after releasing PAIN. Elemental Shields and Flame Shields will make you immune to Pumas. Giving these the Flip flag will not make them jump upside-down, at least in 2.2.8. Make sure that the first and last thing that these things land in is Lava.
-Firebars: Coming straight out of the Mario IP, these are just Maces that don't hurt you if you have an Elemental Shield or a Flame Shield. These can thematically be used to look like big Pumas that don't just jump up and down, meaning that the chain links are MT_NULL, with the only Firebar being at the end of the chain. These may also be thematically placed in PTZ in any place where it'd make sense in a real Mario level, though I haven't gotten around to changing PTZ yet. Outside of Mario levels, make sure that these come from and go to Lava.
WARNING: Each Firebar creates many decorative objects that persist for a few seconds as they move around; placing too many of these in one location may cause the player's renderer to hit the object limit, and may cause the game to lag.
ERZ has space, crushers, lasers, and lava in vanilla, as well as some stone walls that I can use Rock Spawners with, though I didn't use many Rock Spawners in ERZ1/2. In the lava rooms in ERZ, I got to use all hazards available for RVZ, except for Torch Flowers; speaking of which, a few rooms in ERZ2 were turned into lava rooms. Furthermore, if I remember right, I didn't add any crushers to ERZ; Purple Lasers generally do a better job at what Crushers do, and THZ and DSZ had alot of crushers anyway. Enemies in ERZ have a thematic justification for being up-side down when the player can't be up-side down; gravity does whatever it wants in ERZ. ERZ has few Hive Elementals because the environmental hazards here are hard enough to avoid that the player can't reasonably be expected to assess them while they have to worry about Bumblebores.
WARNING: Using the Software Renderer in these levels will cause visbility issues due to the sheer amount of Lasers and transparent FoFs in them.
-Gravity Changes: In order to not throw people off when going back to vanilla SRB2 after playing too much PAIN, no new Gravity Changes(that apply to players) were added to PAIN.
-Conveyor Belts: In order to not throw people off when going back to vanilla SRB2 after playing too much PAIN, no new Conveyor Belts were added to PAIN.
-Appearing/Disappearing Platforms: In order to not throw people off when going back to vanilla SRB2 after playing too much PAIN, no new Appearing/Disappearing Platforms were added to PAIN.
-Red/Yellow Lasers: They're like crushers, except they merely hurt you instead of killing you, and touching any part of them will hurt you. Attraction Shields and Electric Shields will NOT make you immune to these Lasers, even in vanilla. Beware that lasers will hurt enemies unless they're Polyobjects or Fog Blocks.
WARNING: The Red Lasers in the turret hallway in ERZ2 were widened, preventing you from clipping through the lasers without getting hurt by going fast enough, like how Mario can clip through walls in Super Mario 64 with enough speed and the player is never expected to clip through a laser as such. This is why Caution Signs were placed above said lasers.
-Purple Lasers: Like Red/Yellow Lasers, except touching them kills you. They have a minor bug wherein touching the side of one that isn't a polyobject or fog block without touching its top or bottom will often hurt you as if it were a Red or Yellow Laser, but touching it again will kill you, during pain invulnerability or not. Beware that lasers will hurt enemies unless they're Polyobjects or Fog Blocks. Like Red and Yellow lasers, moving fast enough through a thin enough Purple Laser will result in not getting hurt or killed by it, which the player is never expected to do.
-Green Translucent Blocks: These won't hurt you or enemies, but they'll block enemies.
-Space: Space is like water, except it makes you suffocate faster, it has no water physics, you can't put air bubbles in it, and it usually comes with low gravity. Before entering a space section, the mapper is very heavily obliged to place blue fog to signify the beginning and end of space, and to serve as a thematic reason as to why the rest of the level has air in it, and if the space has any air pockets, they'd ought to be designated by blue fog. Of course, for there to thematically be a space section, there has to be, well, space, connected to the space section, so you can't just stick a space section into an entirely indoor area unless it has a missing window that leads to space. Elemental Shields & Bubble Shields make you immune to Space, but there aren't any of either in ERZ.
-Spikeballs: I took a liberty, so to speak, to add Spikeballs to ERZ, usually in the form of Custom Maces. Spikeballs are like maces, except they're tiny and have a thematic justification for floating in the air; in fact, you can't just place them flat on the ground because that'd thematically interfere with the rotation illustrated by their animation. I only used Spikeballs when I couldn't think of any other ideas for environmental hazards, such as in the crusher section at the start of the right path in ERZ1, and in the elevator room in ERZ2.
WARNING: Using the Software Renderer in these levels will cause visbility issues due to the sheer amount of Lasers and transparent FoFs in them.
-Gravity Changes: In order to not throw people off when going back to vanilla SRB2 after playing too much PAIN, no new Gravity Changes(that apply to players) were added to PAIN.
-Conveyor Belts: In order to not throw people off when going back to vanilla SRB2 after playing too much PAIN, no new Conveyor Belts were added to PAIN.
-Appearing/Disappearing Platforms: In order to not throw people off when going back to vanilla SRB2 after playing too much PAIN, no new Appearing/Disappearing Platforms were added to PAIN.
-Red/Yellow Lasers: They're like crushers, except they merely hurt you instead of killing you, and touching any part of them will hurt you. Attraction Shields and Electric Shields will NOT make you immune to these Lasers, even in vanilla. Beware that lasers will hurt enemies unless they're Polyobjects or Fog Blocks.
WARNING: The Red Lasers in the turret hallway in ERZ2 were widened, preventing you from clipping through the lasers without getting hurt by going fast enough, like how Mario can clip through walls in Super Mario 64 with enough speed and the player is never expected to clip through a laser as such. This is why Caution Signs were placed above said lasers.
-Purple Lasers: Like Red/Yellow Lasers, except touching them kills you. They have a minor bug wherein touching the side of one that isn't a polyobject or fog block without touching its top or bottom will often hurt you as if it were a Red or Yellow Laser, but touching it again will kill you, during pain invulnerability or not. Beware that lasers will hurt enemies unless they're Polyobjects or Fog Blocks. Like Red and Yellow lasers, moving fast enough through a thin enough Purple Laser will result in not getting hurt or killed by it, which the player is never expected to do.
-Green Translucent Blocks: These won't hurt you or enemies, but they'll block enemies.
-Space: Space is like water, except it makes you suffocate faster, it has no water physics, you can't put air bubbles in it, and it usually comes with low gravity. Before entering a space section, the mapper is very heavily obliged to place blue fog to signify the beginning and end of space, and to serve as a thematic reason as to why the rest of the level has air in it, and if the space has any air pockets, they'd ought to be designated by blue fog. Of course, for there to thematically be a space section, there has to be, well, space, connected to the space section, so you can't just stick a space section into an entirely indoor area unless it has a missing window that leads to space. Elemental Shields & Bubble Shields make you immune to Space, but there aren't any of either in ERZ.
-Spikeballs: I took a liberty, so to speak, to add Spikeballs to ERZ, usually in the form of Custom Maces. Spikeballs are like maces, except they're tiny and have a thematic justification for floating in the air; in fact, you can't just place them flat on the ground because that'd thematically interfere with the rotation illustrated by their animation. I only used Spikeballs when I couldn't think of any other ideas for environmental hazards, such as in the crusher section at the start of the right path in ERZ1, and in the elevator room in ERZ2.
Black Core Zone 1 was designed to test the player's ability to dodge Pterabytes, which I'll leave to your imagination. Such design involving non-re-usable hazards is far more feasible in this level than in other levels because BCZ1 has a time limit. That said, Red Lasers were placed in BCZ1 to make it very hard for certain characters to cheese the second-last hallway by going outside of the electric fences. The level also contains clusters of Pyre Flies in certain places to make it harder for some characters to cheese certain parts of the level; the Pyre Flies aren't completely out of place due to the presence of Lava in BCZ1.
-Bomb Spheres will hurt you when you touch them, and then create a tiny explosion and despawn. Attraction Shields, Electric Shields, and Paraloops will attract them to you as if they were rings. Bomb Spheres were generally placed next to Blue Spheres in the Special Stages to make them harder to obtain. These hazards aren't re-usable since they don't respawn after they blow up, but this isn't an issue in Special Stages due to their nature.
-Bumpers don't fit the thematics on any level other than Special Stages, which fit them because they, being special, are allowed to deviate from typical thematic expectations to an extent. Bumpers will bump you away from then if you touch them, which can threaten you by bumping you into something that hurts you or a death pit, or it can knock you off of a high platform or just waste the limited time that you have to complete the Special Stages. Bumpers grant you 10 points per bump, to a maximum of 50 points per bumper. If Tails touches a bumper while flying, he'll immediately get tired and start falling, and if Knuckles touches one while gliding, he'll immediately stop gliding.
-NiGHTS Bumpers will, upon contact, force you to go in a specified direction, much like springs will, except Amy can't hammer them to make them fling you harder. These were only used in Special Stage 2 to prevent softlocks from occuring.
-Bumpers don't fit the thematics on any level other than Special Stages, which fit them because they, being special, are allowed to deviate from typical thematic expectations to an extent. Bumpers will bump you away from then if you touch them, which can threaten you by bumping you into something that hurts you or a death pit, or it can knock you off of a high platform or just waste the limited time that you have to complete the Special Stages. Bumpers grant you 10 points per bump, to a maximum of 50 points per bumper. If Tails touches a bumper while flying, he'll immediately get tired and start falling, and if Knuckles touches one while gliding, he'll immediately stop gliding.
-NiGHTS Bumpers will, upon contact, force you to go in a specified direction, much like springs will, except Amy can't hammer them to make them fling you harder. These were only used in Special Stage 2 to prevent softlocks from occuring.
-Spikeballs don't exist in any vanilla levels, not counting an unfinished and inaccessible part of vanilla ACZ2, though I did do a bit of rule-breaking and put some in ERZ1 & ERZ2 because I was short on ideas for those levels. See the section on ERZ for more information.
-Balloons, while they are re-usable, don't exist in vanilla levels, so there ain't any in PAIN.
-Boost Panels ain't bad hazards if they send you in the wrong direction, but they're unintuitive when used that way and don't exist in vanilla, so there ain't any in PAIN.
-Cannonball Launchers; I suppose that I could use some of these in CEZ1 & CEZ2, but they'd probably be relatively easy to dodge since they always aim at the player, and so, aren't much different than Pophats and largely overlap with the bees, not considering whether or not the cannonballs can kill enemies, such as bees(which I haven't tested). There aren't any Cannonball Launchers in PAIN.
-Hive Elementals: Hive Elementals, when placed properly, serve to force the player to go fast, or else. Do know that, while they have potentially unlimited speed, constantly moving at not-slow speeds will generally result in not getting stung by bees, though you can't always afford to move that quickly. There are methods of avoiding them, but I'm not really sure how to describe them. I was also able to use Hive Elementals as non-reusable bounce hazards by sticking them where the player is intended to go and giving the Hive Elementals a Parameter of 1, causing them to only produce 1 Bumblebore at a time. Like all Hive Elementals, however, they threaten to produce an extra 3 Bumblebores if you hit them once, and going from 1 Bumblebore to 4 is a relatively large difference. Hive Elementals were very rarely used in the place of environmental hazards. Off the top of my head, examples of this include the big steam jet room in THZ1, the Appearing/Disappearing blue platform section in ERZ1(don't forget that only characters with a spindash can go there), and the bridge after the 2D sections in ERZ2.
Nearly all of PAIN's levels contain Hive Elementals. These are one of the few exceptions to all enemy placements fitting the theme of the level that the enemy is in.
-Pterabytes: Pterabytes were very annoying in vanilla, and were nerfed in 2.2.10, but I made them even worse in PAIN; you can't break free from their grabbles anymore, and will have to wait until they decide to drop you(or something kills them) if they grabble you. Pterabytes serve as aerial and somewhat-reusable hazards that threaten to, at the very least, slow down the player if they aren't dodged, which synergizes well with Bumblebores. After PAIN's early levels, Pterabytes are usually placed over dangerous places, such as lava and death pits, or such that getting grabbled by one will mean going from a high path to a lower path, but before that, getting grabbled by one usually just means getting slowed down. In a few parts of PAIN's early levels, a Pterabyte will be used as an environmental hazard by placing one over a bed of spikes, like at the beginning of GFZ1; this is a very cheap and avoidable type of environmental hazard that is very rarely found after GFZ2, and, if memory serves me right, doesn't exist after CEZ1. These are one of the few exceptions to all enemy placements fitting the theme of the level that the enemy is in.
-Crumbling Platforms: Crumbling platforms are platforms that suddenly fall about a second after the player stands on them, and then respawn if the player doesn't stand on it again for 15 seconds. Using these can make a level that contains them feel like troll level. Among all of the environmental hazards added to PAIN, Crumbling Platforms constitute none of them to make sure that PAIN doesn't troll the player.
-Bouncy Floors & Bouncy Walls: For reasons that I'm not so sure how to describe and involve none of these existing in vanilla SRB2 levels outside of PTZ, none of these were added to PAIN, lest it feel like a troll level pack.
-General Terrain Changes: Changing terrain will almost always throw off the player when going back to vanilla after having played too much PAIN. For this reason, this was done in very few places throughout PAIN, but never in a way that'll substantially throw you off as described. On a related note, I'd neglected to add a secret room that was added to DSZ2 in patch 2.2.9 to PAIN, which uses 2.2.8's maps as its foundation; I'll add the room to PAIN in a later version.
-Balloons, while they are re-usable, don't exist in vanilla levels, so there ain't any in PAIN.
-Boost Panels ain't bad hazards if they send you in the wrong direction, but they're unintuitive when used that way and don't exist in vanilla, so there ain't any in PAIN.
-Cannonball Launchers; I suppose that I could use some of these in CEZ1 & CEZ2, but they'd probably be relatively easy to dodge since they always aim at the player, and so, aren't much different than Pophats and largely overlap with the bees, not considering whether or not the cannonballs can kill enemies, such as bees(which I haven't tested). There aren't any Cannonball Launchers in PAIN.
-Hive Elementals: Hive Elementals, when placed properly, serve to force the player to go fast, or else. Do know that, while they have potentially unlimited speed, constantly moving at not-slow speeds will generally result in not getting stung by bees, though you can't always afford to move that quickly. There are methods of avoiding them, but I'm not really sure how to describe them. I was also able to use Hive Elementals as non-reusable bounce hazards by sticking them where the player is intended to go and giving the Hive Elementals a Parameter of 1, causing them to only produce 1 Bumblebore at a time. Like all Hive Elementals, however, they threaten to produce an extra 3 Bumblebores if you hit them once, and going from 1 Bumblebore to 4 is a relatively large difference. Hive Elementals were very rarely used in the place of environmental hazards. Off the top of my head, examples of this include the big steam jet room in THZ1, the Appearing/Disappearing blue platform section in ERZ1(don't forget that only characters with a spindash can go there), and the bridge after the 2D sections in ERZ2.
Nearly all of PAIN's levels contain Hive Elementals. These are one of the few exceptions to all enemy placements fitting the theme of the level that the enemy is in.
-Pterabytes: Pterabytes were very annoying in vanilla, and were nerfed in 2.2.10, but I made them even worse in PAIN; you can't break free from their grabbles anymore, and will have to wait until they decide to drop you(or something kills them) if they grabble you. Pterabytes serve as aerial and somewhat-reusable hazards that threaten to, at the very least, slow down the player if they aren't dodged, which synergizes well with Bumblebores. After PAIN's early levels, Pterabytes are usually placed over dangerous places, such as lava and death pits, or such that getting grabbled by one will mean going from a high path to a lower path, but before that, getting grabbled by one usually just means getting slowed down. In a few parts of PAIN's early levels, a Pterabyte will be used as an environmental hazard by placing one over a bed of spikes, like at the beginning of GFZ1; this is a very cheap and avoidable type of environmental hazard that is very rarely found after GFZ2, and, if memory serves me right, doesn't exist after CEZ1. These are one of the few exceptions to all enemy placements fitting the theme of the level that the enemy is in.
-Crumbling Platforms: Crumbling platforms are platforms that suddenly fall about a second after the player stands on them, and then respawn if the player doesn't stand on it again for 15 seconds. Using these can make a level that contains them feel like troll level. Among all of the environmental hazards added to PAIN, Crumbling Platforms constitute none of them to make sure that PAIN doesn't troll the player.
-Bouncy Floors & Bouncy Walls: For reasons that I'm not so sure how to describe and involve none of these existing in vanilla SRB2 levels outside of PTZ, none of these were added to PAIN, lest it feel like a troll level pack.
-General Terrain Changes: Changing terrain will almost always throw off the player when going back to vanilla after having played too much PAIN. For this reason, this was done in very few places throughout PAIN, but never in a way that'll substantially throw you off as described. On a related note, I'd neglected to add a secret room that was added to DSZ2 in patch 2.2.9 to PAIN, which uses 2.2.8's maps as its foundation; I'll add the room to PAIN in a later version.
Also included with this release is the legacy(really old) version of PAIN, wherein all I'd done was lazily change the enemies, mostly by putting bees everywhere and sticking pterabytes in "fun" places. I made that version in 2021 for laughs, and some people actually liked it when I hosted netgames with it last year. So as to not confuse people who didn't read the overview into downloading that version instead of the new one, said old version of PAIN, which replaces the relevant vanilla maps, can be found exclusively in this mod's discussion thread. There are minor differences in ERZ1 & BCZ1 from the actual v1.0.6(the latest version I'd hosted prior to this mod getting approved on the MB), however, but the rest of the mod is exactly the same as that version is, backend stuff aside.
Thanks to the official SRB2 discord's #zone-building and #scripting channels for helping me with bits and pieces of the mod, and to the few playtesters for helping me to get this mod to the state that it's in now, and thx to Othius for helping me a bit with BCZ3.
KNOWN BUGS:
#1: NiGHTS mode will refuse to record your best time and best score in the Special Stages, presumably because these are 2.0-style special stages. This also means that I can't make the Special Stages grant time or score emblems. It will record your last replay, at least, so you can at least save that as a guest, and then re-name it to best time if you wanna record a PB in a Special stage.
#2: Transparency issues may be encountered in ERZ1 & ERZ2 if you don't use the OpenGL Renderer, due entirely to the sheer amounts of lasers and transparent FoFs/polyobjects in these levels; as such, it may be difficult to tell what's behind such an object in those levels if you don't use the OpenGL Renderer.
#3(minor): The Multiplayer Boss Reset Chambers will fail to open their door if everyone but offline people are in the door, and then the offline people get kicked(and possibly if their rejoin timeout expires) until either someone commits suicide and respawns, or new joins the game, whether or not that new person is one of said offline players or someone in the chamber who waits out the rejoin timer and then rejoins; the alternative is replacing the All Players, Anywhere in Sector trigger linedef with Floor Touch, All Players, which can lead to Knuckles players preventing the door from opening. Of course, the server's admin can fix this by picking the level in Level Select.
#4(minor): Characters with the power to teleport through walls(such as Kamek) who enter a Multiplayer Boss Respawn Chamber can trigger the goalpost before everyone dies, causing the level to restart if the remaining players kill the boss instead of progressing to the next level.
#5: Getting hit in a Special Stage in a netgame will only cause you, and not other people, to lose time.
#6: The lasers in BCZ3 will slowly desynch over time.
P.S.: if you're one of those guys who make mod showcase videos and actually decide to showcase this for some reason, please include the starting cutscene(even if it's sped up) and don't just showcase the levels before CEZ2, lest people don't get the wrong impression about the utter PAIN in this mod, even if it involves using console commands to warp to specified levels.
