Carnival of Carnage

Carnival of Carnage
Basic Information
Map type:	Special Delivery
File name:	sd_doomsday_event
Released:	October 29, 2014 Patch (Scream Fortress VI)
Variants:	Doomsday
Developer(s):	Valve
Map Info
Environment:	Desert
Setting:	Nighttime
Hazards:	Pumpkin bombs, Bottomless pit, The Necro Smasher
Hazards (Underworld):	Pitfalls, Horseless Headless Horsemann
Magic spells:	Yes
Map Items
Health Kits:	×2  •   ×4  •    ×3
Ammo Boxes:	×2   •    ×2   •    ×2
Special:	•
Map Photos
Map Overview

“

Misfortune telling! Dangerous rides! The world's biggest test-your-strength strongman machine! Merasmus's Carnival of Carnage has it all... except corpses! — Carnival of Carnage publicity blurb

”

Carnival of Carnage is an official Special Delivery map. It released as part of the Scream Fortress 2014 update on October 29, 2014.

The objective is to carry a briefcase full of tickets to The World's Largest Strongmann Machine on the opposite side of the map and insert it into the spectral lock at the top, all while Merasmus makes snarky commentary. Merasmus also owns and hosts this evil carnival, but is heavily in debt to the Japanese mafia.

Pumpkin bombs and magic spells spawn on various locations on the map, with the spells appearing as glowing crystal balls. Soul Gargoyles also appear on this map.

At the beginning of the round, Merasmus instructs players to collect the tickets for entry to The World's Largest Strongmann Machine while simultaneously working to kill the other team in an attempt to appease the bloody desires of Bonzo, the evil ancient Sumerian circus god. If a player plays the next round, Merasmus makes more comments at the player saying that they are stupid for falling for the trap, but he "promises" that he will not do it again.

Overview of the Duck Collectors part of the map.

Overview of the Falling Platforms part of the map.

Overview of the Bumper Car Soccer part of the map.

Locations

• Cliff: On the far end of the map, next to the Strongmann Machine is a large cliff face with an upper wooden platform that can be traversed through two small corridors on either side of the Cliff.
• Strongmann Machine: This area contains ramps on either side and is where the tickets must be taken and held for a team's victory.
• Tower: In the centre of the map is a tall grey tower containing two small Health kits.
• Exhaust Ravine: At the center of the map in front of the Strongmann Machine is a ravine used to contain the rocket's exhaust in Doomsday. At the end of the ravine in front of a death pit is a max Health kit.
• Wooden Bridge: Above the Exhaust Ravine is a bridge that leads to the Tickets. At the tower near the rocket are two small Health kits, and at the end is a medium Health kit. In the center of the bridge is a max ammo kit.
• Landing: Just above the sewer entrances for both teams is a small flat area of ground that provides a great view of the map and leads back through a corridor to the Ticket Platform.
• Sewer Tunnels: On both sides of the battlefield are two sewers that lead to the tickets. Inside each tunnel is a medium Health kit and a medium ammo kit.
• Ticket Platform: The ticket case spawns on a small plank over a creek. On both sides of the platform are two battlements with a small Health kit inside each one, and max ammo kits underneath.

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  The RED spawn's briefing room with the lights off

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  The wooden Merasmus head that looks out over the main playing area at the Strongmann Game

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  A side view of the Strongmann Game, showing its levels

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  The top of the Strongmann Game

Strategy

Main article: Community Carnival of Carnage strategy

Curses

During the initial battle for the briefcase of tickets, Merasmus may summon all players to The World's Largest Strongmann Machine and put one of three temporary Curses on all players.

• Underwater: All players swim about the entire map in a pool of Jarate, without the drowning hazard. Players can swim anywhere including all the way up to the top of the skybox. All weapon rules in water still apply (watch out for Pyrosharks).
• Balloon Heads: All players' heads are inflated, giving the players the ability to jump higher and float slowly down, and ironically gives players a deeper voice.
• No Guns: All players are limited to melee weapons and have the rare Shrinking Spell applied to them, without the infinite jump bonus. All projectiles and Sentry ammo are removed while the players are being teleported.

Bumper Cars

Once either team has placed the tickets at the top of the machine, both teams are pulled into aggressive bumper car battles. The bumper cars are controlled with the directional and jump keys, with the option to activate a speed boost using alternate fire. Any player hit by another car receive damage and are knocked back, with both being affected by the speed of the attacking car. The more damage a car has, the farther it can be knocked back. If a player is knocked off the map, they become a ghost. Ghosts are capable of flight via the jump key, and can be turned back into bumper cars if they fly back to the arena and touch another player on their team. If a Ghost touches the opposing team's bumper car, the ghost produces a sound and flies upwards, as if knocked back.

The bumper cars can also pick up one of four spells in crystal balls. These spells are:

• Uber Heal: Removes 50% of damage taken and leaves the player invulnerable for a few seconds. The mercenary says "barpo kabalto" while performing the spell.
• Boxing Rocket: Fires a projectile boxing glove, which on a hit launches enemy players and damages them. The mercenary say "deus invictus" when casting the spell.
• B.A.S.E. Jump: Launches the player up into the air and then lets them float down slowly on a parachute. Pressing the jump button stows the parachute and ends the spell early; the parachute cannot be reactivated in the same way. The spell can also launch nearby enemies when activated. The mercenary say "amplus tripudio" when casting the spell.
• Bombinomicon Head: The Bombinomicon appears and gives the player a bomb head which explodes and damages the player after a period of time as it does on Ghost Fort. If the player can ram another player before it explodes, the explosion affects the person being hit instead, usually knocking them back a huge distance as well.

Once in a Bumper Car Arena, the teams are pitted against each other in one of three possible randomly chosen competitions.

Falling Platforms

In "Falling Platforms", the last team with a player remaining on an increasingly smaller arena of intermittently falling platforms wins. If both teams have at least one player remaining on the last platform, or the center platform, the Horseless Headless Horsemann is summoned to knock players off of said platform until one team is left standing. If the Horseless Headless Horsemann is defeated before one team is left standing, another one is summoned again and again until the objective is achieved. There are no obtainable spells in this minigame.

Bumper Car Soccer

In "Bumper Car Soccer", both teams try to ram a giant beach ball into their opponents' toothy goal. The first team to score three goals wins. Alternatively, a team can win by knocking the other team out of the arena. When one team is in match point, Merasmus announces to the players that he is bored and asks the leading team to hurry up and finish, although there is no time limit after he asks. If any player drives into a goal's up-chuck after a goal is scored into the scored goal, the player is pushed back in the opposite direction. Spells are obtainable in this minigame (see above for a listing of spells). If neither team has scored for a while, the game then goes into sudden death, where the first team to score a goal wins.

Duck Collectors

In "Duck Collectors", a large number of ducks intermittently spawn on a large figure 8-esque race track. The first team to collect 200 ducks wins. Alternatively, a team can win by knocking the other team off of the track. If damage is dealt to opposing players' bumper cars, golden "bonus" ducks fly out of the rammed car and are valued as 2 ducks per golden duck. Spells are obtainable in this minigame.

If, instead of completing the objective of the minigame, one team instead simply knocks the other team off of the track, Merasmus comments about the dishonorable win and what he thinks about it.

Related achievements

See also: Obtaining Halloween achievements

Scarechievements

Attack o' Lantern Cause the deaths of 5 players by exploding nearby pumpkin bombs. Scared Stiff Kill a player scared by a ghost.

Candy Coroner Collect 20 Halloween pumpkins from dead players to unlock a hat. Reward: Mildly Disturbing Halloween Mask

Merasmachievements

Carnival of Carnage: Bumper Crop Kill 30 enemies by bumping their bumper cars off the tracks. Carnival of Carnage: Up All Night To Get Ducky Collect 250 ducks. Carnival of Carnage: Hat Trick Score 3 goals in bumper car soccer. Carnival of Carnage: Step Right Up Earn 4 of the Carnival of Carnage achievements. Reward: Necro Smasher

Carnival of Carnage: ReinKartnation Respawn 30 ghost teammates during bumper car games. Carnival of Carnage: Arms Reduction Kill 15 enemies while under the effect of Merasmus's melee-only curse. Carnival of Carnage: Bumper to Bumper to Bumper Win each of the 3 bumper car games to earn a bonus Halloween Gift Cauldron.

Update history

October 29, 2014 Patch (Scream Fortress VI)

• Added new Halloween map Carnival of Carnage
  • Merasmus will spread misfortune with server wide curses
  • Added a Strongmann Test-Your-Strength machine which is in no way an eldritch portal to Bumper Car Madness!

October 30, 2014 Patch

• Added spell pickups near the ticket case spawn
• Reduced mega spell respawn time from 90 seconds to 45 seconds
• Fixed curses occurring in bumper car minigames
• Fixed players being able to boost their bumper cars early
• Increased the damage that bumper cars receive from collisions
• Players can no longer suicide when in a Bumper Car
• Replaced large ammo kits near the Strongmann machine with spells
• Reduced ammo kit size on the bridge from full to medium
• Updated HHH to use a giant Necro Smasher when attacking players
• Platform game:
  • Fixed Merasmus giving instructions in the platform game when it gets to the final platform
  • Center tent pole now vanishes when the final platform is reached
• Soccer game:
  • Added HHH, spawns 45 seconds into the match
• Duck game:
  • Increased max score to 200

November 4, 2014 Patch

• Fixed a bug where Merasmus's curses would trigger during the bumper car minigames.
• Fixed players using the tiny-melee-only curse to get outside of the playable area of the map.
• Fixed a bug with the Eureka Effect and with Teleporters where players could escape being teleported to the bumper car minigames.
• Reduced duration of the Monoculus spell from 15 seconds to 8 seconds.
• Fixed players being able to construct buildings in the spawn areas.
• Fixed Engineers not being able to build if a Merasmus curse is enabled while they were carrying a building.
• Updated Merasmus's curses to remove all projectiles and Sentry Gun ammo when teleporting players to the middle of the map.

November 7, 2014 Patch

• Fixed a timing issue with Merasmus's announcement of the tickets becoming available.

October 30, 2015 Patch

• Fixed an exploit related to changing teams while in bumper car mode.

November 7, 2017 Patch

• Fixed an exploit where players were getting out of bumper-car mode and ghost mode on Halloween maps.

October 19, 2018 Patch

• Fixed a problem with client-side prediction on Halloween maps that use the bumper car mini-game.

October 10, 2019 Patch (Scream Fortress XI)

• Updated Carnival of Carnage to fix an area where Engineers could build outside of the world.

Unused content

• Merasmus has 22 unused voice lines related to killing and missing with the Necro Smasher. These lines were later repurposed for Slasher.
• Merasmus' mouth in the misfortune teller machine is set up to move with his speaking, but it is currently disabled. A smaller version of this Merasmus head, with a moving mouth, is used on Laughter.
• Both Merasmus' head and the misfortune teller machine have an unused Deactivated State.
• The bell on top of the Strongmann game has different unused animations designed for the different heights of the bell named after the signs along the side of the machine, implying that the game was intended to be "playable" at some stages of the development.
• There is an early iteration of the bumper cars found in the game files, only their textures remained, while their original models are not found on the files. Three textures are available, with one of them used as a "base" texture, while the other two are colored in blue and red.

Bugs

• During the bumper cars soccer mini game, after one team scores the winning goal, it is still possible to hit the ball into the opposite goal causing Merasmus to announce the formerly losing team's victory. This does not give the losing team a win for the round, however.
• During the "falling platforms" minigame, players can get stuck to the bounds of the arena. They cannot fall, and if they are the last one alive, other players respawn above the pit. The only way to fix this glitch is if the player disconnects, or upon round end.
  • Additionally; if a player uses the Taunt Menu function (default key: G) before falling off of a track, the Menu opens once the player turns into a ghost. This allows the player to do taunts in ghost form (i.e. Rancho Relaxo or Square Dance).
• If one of Merasmus' curses is cast as the round goes to the bumper cars portion, players have the spell cast on them, therefore teleporting them to the Strongmann. The round is unable to continue, as all players are in the Doomsday portion of the map.
  • This can be fixed in community servers by scrambling the teams.
• The bumper cars have a tendency to flip upside down (especially if the underwater spell continues functioning during the bumper cars mini-game) causing the playermodel to assume a reference pose.
• It is not possible to use the Disguise Kit by selecting it on the weapon category when under the effect of Merasmus' melee-only curse, however, it is possible by pressing the Last Disguise button (default key: B).
  • The same thing can be done on any of the bumper car games.
• This map often crashes Mac users.

Trivia

• The bumper car minigames utilize a similar mechanic to that of the Super Smash Bros. series. Instead of health points that result in death once depleted, players have a damage percentage that rises upon taking damage, with higher percentages resulting in more knockback, and with the only way to die being to get knocked off the stage.
• The "Shoot The Idiot" and "Raccoon Rampage" shooting gallery minigames both re-use art from the Doom-Mates comic, which was used to set up the 2012 Scream Fortress event. "Shoot The Idiot" uses the image of the RED Soldier from pages 5-7, and "Raccoon Rampage" uses an image of one of the running raccoons from the aforementioned pages. The "Raccoon Rampage" sign features Lieutenant Bites and another raccoon, as seen on the comic's cover. Neither game is actually playable and only serve as decoration.
• Behind the wall underneath the platform extending off of the Misfortune Teller machine, there are what appears to be a large button, a coin slot, and a ticket Dispenser attached to an unused part of the full Misfortune Teller machine model.
• The posters on this map reflect notorious sideshow attractions once commonly presented at circuses and carnivals; evolutionary “missing-links” (pitiful child-man), human animals (human crab), primates (alive!), bearded ladies (but, too often just a man in a dress or a woman with a fake beard), human cannonball (although the attraction was usually to see a man get loaded into a cannon, not get drunk (loaded) while in a cannon).
• The Strongmann Machine has multiple signs on the side of it displaying different labels of "strength" like a regular strongman machine. One of which is He-Man, a reference to one of the main characters from the Masters of the Universe franchise.

Gallery

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  "Shoot the Idiot" game, exterior

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  Inside the "Shoot the Idiot" game, showing Soldier in scene from the Doom-Mates comic

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  "The Inexplicable Bearded Pyro" poster, featuring Pyro

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  "The Pitiful Child-Man" poster, featuring Scout

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  The "Human Crab" poster, featuring Spy

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  The "See A Man Get Loaded In A Cannon" poster, featuring Demoman

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  The "Merasmus" poster, featuring Merasmus himself

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  Exterior of the "Raccoon Rampage" game

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  Interior of the "Raccoon Rampage" game

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  The Falling Platforms game arena

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  The Duck Collectors track from the BLU side

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  A side view of the Duck Collectors track

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  The Duck Collectors track from the RED side

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  The Bumper Car Soccer playing field

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  Special Carnival of Carnage's tickets briefcase

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  The damage/boost gauge during the bumper car event, alongside the spell display

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  An image of the large Necro Smasher used for the Strongmann game

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  RED team Bumper Car

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  BLU team Bumper Car

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  The duck pickup for the Duck Collectors game

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  The bonus duck pickup for the Duck Collectors game

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  An unused ghost duck pickup

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  The texture for the early iteration of the Bumper Car

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  The early Bumper Car texture with the red-colored tint

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  The early Bumper Car texture with the blue-colored tint

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  The Horseless Headless Horsemann as he appears in the Bumper Car minigames