[underTaker]

Forge, on 26 February 2019 - 10:28 AM, said:

get a beta-tester, rookie

Me:




But about the map - absolutely loved it, though little green fuckers kept my heart rate at way too high levels

[ck3D]

Thanks man, stoked you enjoyed it. That's kind of type of adrenaline rush I was hoping the 'little green fuckers' would give the player, so that every counter would be a 'oh shit!' kind of moment. I sort of feel like the average Duke enemy is never strong enough to carry such a weight anymore unless in particularly creative set-ups, and the monsters who had the most of that type of potential (i.e.. Battlelords), players learn to tame a long time ago. So I was hoping those wouldn't just be a nuisance but also make for frenetic challenges.

[Perro Seco]

I liked your map a lot. I enjoyed exploring this colorful city with lots of small details. What I liked the most was looking through the windows to the outside; great views.

Difficulty was a bit excessive in the power station area. Not a big problem, but I couldn't pass it without saving-loading a lot.

Great to see it works on classic renderer, that's the cherry on top, what makes the map perfect.

And now some questions...

Spoiler

Is Duke the serial killer? I ask because their apartments seem to be linked, and the killer's to do list is..., what I just did while playing the map.

Do I have to kill the cycloid emperor to end the level? A lot of enemies spawn through the entire map at that point, and that makes me wonder if there's also a nuke button somewhere as alternative ending...

[ck3D]

Perro Seco, on 11 July 2019 - 02:13 AM, said:

I liked your map a lot. I enjoyed exploring this colorful city with lots of small details. What I liked the most was looking through the windows to the outside; great views.

Difficulty was a bit excessive in the power station area. Not a big problem, but I couldn't pass it without saving-loading a lot.

Great to see it works on classic renderer, that's the cherry on top, what makes the map perfect.

And now some questions...

Spoiler

Is Duke the serial killer? I ask because their apartments seem to be linked, and the killer's to do list is..., what I just did while playing the map.

Do I have to kill the cycloid emperor to end the level? A lot of enemies spawn through the entire map at that point, and that makes me wonder if there's also a nuke button somewhere as alternative ending...

Thanks a lot for your feedback, Perro Seco. Glad you liked the map so much.

Regarding your questions:

Spoiler

1/ I kind of left that open to interpretation, originally I had more detail planned for the end of the level to try and rationalize the connection between both apartments (besides the technical similarity of both being perfect sniper spots for the final battle), but I guess I gradually ended up losing interest in that idea as I was actually making those sections, thinking it would be cool if the mystery remained unresolved as the scenery itself already felt on point like that with no further explanation. Now all is left is the weird teleporter between both flats, which by itself raises doubts; I kind of threw in that bogus, unexpected feature on purpose because the original game was full of those incoherent teleporters (e.g. L.A. Rumble) and I find them fun to merge with more realistic-looking maps sometimes, I love the weird contrast. Honestly I can't remember off the top of my head what my exact ideas for a ridiculous plot that would have tied them together were originally, but besides that it involved the microwave. Now the player can choose to make up their story and essentially pick between two endings, one explicitly told by the scenery (serial killer committed suicide in the car and is dead inside, you feel like you just solved something), or another one where Duke would be the serial killer, had changed his mind about the meaning of life and escaped the car only to leave it on then go on his postal round because business, as usual. Haha, I don't know.

2/ Yes you have to kill the Emperor, there is no Nukebutton. When you enter Duke's apartment, if you listen carefully a bell rings twelve times in the background (meaning it's Christmas) and every Christmas present you've encountered in the level before spawns an item. Which means that if you're not well equipped for the last fight you are free to go back to the earlier locations (indoors and outdoors) and explore for goodies, but a handful of average-to-tough foes also respawn in the corridors and whatnot, so it's a double-edged sword to choose to venture back there.

[Jan Satcitananda]

Wow, really great map, Aymeric! Finally got the right mood to give it a try. Played in 4:37, after an hour or so of learning the map. I've recorded a gameplay video, where the level is completed using a possibly non-intended shortcut. Actually, fighting the flawed game physics was the primary challenge for speedrunning, since many places feel very cramped and raise the tension with sudden explosions. But I like the top-notch design and diverse layout, the overall flow and feel is reminding me of "It Lives" by Gambini a lot, spruced up with christmas-theme decorations. I like the original creative ideas you've put into the map, such as modified enemies and custom keycards. Maybe slimer eggs are overkill though.

[Jan Satcitananda]

---

[ck3D]

Hey Jan, thanks for the feedback and wow, nice one! Yeah, that shortcut was obviously never meant to be the intentional route, but I was aware of its existence and quite deliberately left it in, because I like the idea of 'rewarding' the player for giving something different a try, the original game did that quite a lot IIRC e.g.. the possibility of entering the cinema through that crack in E1L1, or allowing the player earlier access to stuff if they managed to retain some jetpack from earlier levels. Sometimes that doesn't break the map and actually makes for a cool bonus. By using this one the player misses out on a good third of the level (and one of my favorite parts), but they most likely won't find it on their first ever run and get confused, and they're also going to need to work for it a bit if they aren't an experienced Duker so if they manage to make it up there on their own, to me it's fair game. Even though not a speed runner myself, I'm always intrigued by seeing how people learn to exploit a setting in general and basically reinterpret it, so I like leaving 'possibilities' out in the open in my maps every once in a while, as long as the order of the intended, basic key-based progression isn't thrown out of the window. Sub 5 minutes I wasn't exactly expecting people to get like this though, I'm impressed - notably by how you kept all the street troops alive, the amount of crossfire you must have survived out in the open, all the way up to the boss fight must have been quite insane.

I think you're also the first to bring up the different colored keycards, that was a really fun little absurdity to implement for me, I've thought of ways to make that effect look a bit better since then but I guess the hud will always make such a situation look confusing as one has to rely on (fairly cheap) illusions for that 'effect', which can't fool the game itself so the hud will always give the 'true' color of the card away, ah well.

Also yeah, now I think the slimers suck, most likely won't use those again. The pipebomb-vulnerable newbeasts, on the other hand, I might recycle as fighting them can actually be fun.

[Paul B]

Jan Satcitananda, on 28 November 2019 - 11:10 PM, said:

Wow, really great map, Aymeric! Finally got the right mood to give it a try. Played in 4:37, after an hour or so of learning the map. I've recorded a gameplay video, where the level is completed using a possibly non-intended shortcut. Actually, fighting the flawed game physics was the primary challenge for speedrunning, since many places feel very cramped and raise the tension with sudden explosions. But I like the top-notch design and diverse layout, the overall flow and feel is reminding me of "It Lives" by Gambini a lot, spruced up with christmas-theme decorations. I like the original creative ideas you've put into the map, such as modified enemies and custom keycards. Maybe slimer eggs are overkill though.

Really Impressive!

[The Battlelord]

LOL @ 1:25 i did not realize that, that trick/stunt was possible, nor that spot at 3:07, very nice.

[ck3D]

Was just watching again, extra points for triggering the semi-secret "I think I'll climb a board" joke Duke quote upon climbing atop of that white board in the first office to reach the air duct above (0:48), all the while speedrunning the map. It's an easy one to miss even on a casual play because the lo-tagged sector is so thin, if one doesn't land exactly onto the white board the game tends to miss the quote. Kept it like that on purpose, so it's probably another one of those jokes most people probably won't spot or get. And those who will most likely won't agree on the levels of funny.

edit - there's also that 'mom' poster in the serial killer's den which is just the 'wow' magazine texture flipped and implies that the part of the serial killer's issues stem from his Oedipus' complex.

[Jan Satcitananda]

ck3D, on 07 December 2019 - 06:39 AM, said:

Was just watching again, extra points for triggering the semi-secret "I think I'll climb a board" joke Duke quote upon climbing atop of that white board in the first office to reach the air duct above (0:48), all the while speedrunning the map. It's an easy one to miss even on a casual play because the lo-tagged sector is so thin, if one doesn't land exactly onto the white board the game tends to miss the quote. Kept it like that on purpose, so it's probably another one of those jokes most people probably won't spot or get. And those who will most likely won't agree on the levels of funny.

edit - there's also that 'mom' poster in the serial killer's den which is just the 'wow' magazine texture flipped and implies that the part of the serial killer's issues stem from his Oedipus' complex.

lol, great pun on the original Duke's lines, didn't actually notice first that it was linked to the actual board in the room. I appreciated the 'mom' joke though, some creative use of the artwork. =D

[Seb Luca]

Well. It is done ! What madness, my god! A pure "try-and-die" game festival !


An interminable level and a difficulty pushed to the maximum, I had to die 9 million times (at least). But I see a great knowledge of the gameplay and mechanics of Duke3D to successfully build such precise and timed traps in such a large site

I note an ingenious use of sprites and textures for many original constructions (like cars, or the giant slime mouth). The whole is sometimes not very harmonious because of the colors too garish, but I understand however that it is necessary to deal with the limitations of the game. Great work with shadows and lights, too.
When the cycloboss appeared, I had to pass the game in 30 FPS and deactivate the Polymers et cie, otherwise the display was lagging (and yet I have 16 GB of RAM)
Also: I have noticed many sprite problems which "flash"; because they are placed one on the other and/or too against the wall (the most recurrent example is the halo sprite that you place over the switches).

This universe was very cleverly constructed, to be varied and full of surprises. Never, while playing Duke3D, have I felt so often in danger You managed to create a real nightmare, but to balance it enough to make it traversable. The items are well distributed and their quantity is rationed so as to be sufficient but forcing caution.

Well done! It's a very impressive job!

[ck3D]

Thanks for your feedback, Seb!

You got me thinking (it only took twenty years) about how I keep skipping the testing of my maps in anything else but classic mode before I release them. Personally I grew up with the classic mode so spontaneously, it's the default setting to me but people obviously have their own mode of preference and it shouldn't be hard to tweak a map so that it runs rather 'universally' so to speak, without observable issues.

Saying this because the sprite flickering thing doesn't happen in the mode I use, with the way I'm placing sprites. When I don't set them atop of each other, that's when I get the flickering instead. In video playthroughs, I've also observed that a lot of my cars using a certain texture look way off (it just gets misaligned height-wise in game in certain modes only, looking as though something had been changing the orientation on them) when they look perfectly fine to me in Mapster and in game... in classic mode. I might have always tried (to not forget to) get around that issue by specifying that the level had been designed, and only been tested for classic mode in my .txt files to begin with, but maybe that's a cop out. What I do know is, I'm a bit nervous about the idea of designing according to other rendering settings than everything classic in fear that I might in turn break the look of things in classic mode. If there is a documented list of the differences and guidelines to study whilst working with every renderer for compatibility, I've never come across it.

I'm glad you liked the map; if you found that one hellish, die-and-retry style and liked the hectic aspect, I'd recommend Bummed Out: https://msdn.duke4.n...otbummedout.php which is essentially the more extreme epitome of just that, being essentially the same thing with no weapons. (Note: the player is supposed to collect cash in that map instead of keycards; I don't know what I was thinking at the time, the money sprites are way harder to spot visually than the obvious keycard sprite so the progression in that one is more cryptic than it should be. Will probably revert them back to keycards if I ever update that map again somehow. I would recommend using the latest updated version of the map for now, with higher visibility and security cameras, found here: https://forums.duke4...191#entry167191)

[Seb Luca]

Yes, it could be nice to mention for the classic mode.

Ok, I'll try this map one of these evenings Thanks

[Dukebot]

Long time since I played usermap but I've been playing this for an hour or so to distract me a little bit from mapping. The map looks great, realistic city full of details, nice shadows, interesting puzzles and good progression in the adquirement of new weapons. I would like to say more but the problem it's that I am stuck and after an hour of searching and searching but not advanding I would like to know what to do in order to advance. I have passed the blue key area, but can't find the yellow key or the red key. I am stuck on that area.

[ck3D]

Dukebot, on 04 April 2020 - 11:45 AM, said:

Long time since I played usermap but I've been playing this for an hour or so to distract me a little bit from mapping. The map looks great, realistic city full of details, nice shadows, interesting puzzles and good progression in the adquirement of new weapons. I would like to say more but the problem it's that I am stuck and after an hour of searching and searching but not advanding I would like to know what to do in order to advance. I have passed the blue key area, but can't find the yellow key or the red key. I am stuck on that area.

Thanks for trying this map out, I'm glad you like it so far, about your situation - inside the Christmas tree store, upstairs there's a ventilation shaft (right behind that box where the employees grow weed) that you can enter, have you been there? You can open those 'walls' at the opposite end of the shaft, and then progress further ahead.

Sounds like a bit of a design mistake in retrospect, I expected people to try pushing those walls and the texture to act like a giveaway but I've seen a video playthrough of the map where another player also got stuck there, you're not alone on this part.

[Dukebot]

ck3D, on 04 April 2020 - 12:35 PM, said:

Thanks for trying this map out, I'm glad you like it so far, about your situation - inside the Christmas tree store, upstairs there's a ventilation shaft (right behind that box where the employees grow weed) that you can enter, have you been there? You can open those 'walls' at the opposite end of the shaft, and then progress further ahead.

Sounds like a bit of a design mistake in retrospect, I expected people to try pushing those walls and the texture to act like a giveaway but I've seen a video playthrough of the map where another player also got stuck there, you're not alone on this part.

Thank you for the clarification, it was what you just said. Just followed your instructions and completed the map to the end. I said good words about the map, but there were more things that surprised me after I posted my first impressions. Don't want to spoil anything, on this screenshoots I captured things that I liked about the map and also the things that surprised me (WARNING SPOILER ALERT). I played the map in Come Get Some and I died more than 10 times, maybe 15, so it wasn't an easy map. Overwall it's a great map, long, full of detail and with some very original tricks that I had never seen in any map, enjoyed playing this.

[ck3D]

Thank you for playing and sharing your impressions, I'm happy you liked the map so much, especially appreciate it if you rarely play user levels (these days I'm the same).

Also sorry that you got stuck after the blue key for so long, but witnessing this type of behavior also allows me to understand possible design mistakes, since that map I've learned that for fluid navigation the mapper's responsibility was to simplify the objective of every task to the extreme (which doesn't mean they can't get creative with it), I was already trying to get there in general with that level (e.g.. the slow presentation then strategic distribution of the grinch newbeasts) but now I really make sure I introduce the fancy little concepts better.

Replying to your spoilers:

It's cool that you liked the Cell Block thing, like I was saying earlier in the thread for the longest time I wanted it to be somehow playable but at the time I couldn't come up with a good concept for something as meta as a game inside the game, but thanks to your post now I actually just had a pretty clear idea of which features of the game I could use for something like that, which I'll probably implement in a later map.

I'm pretty happy with the wall fight thing too (although it's glitchy in some renderers/ports for some reason, just like some car textures in my maps suddenly look misaligned in certain conditions which I can tell from other people's playthrough videos and I don't really know why), I kind of want to reuse that concept too and maybe make it an actually interactive boss fight à la Icon of Sin except maybe I could put Randy Pitchford's head behind the masked wall instead of Romero's. Only things I'm not too happy with in that map is the supermarket fight (but you seemed to like it), how much of a slaughterfest it becomes near the end (I wanted a feeling of urgency but it was too much for some people), and how some elements of the progression aren't too obvious, also all those eggs shouldn't have been small, but it was honestly good practice and kind of set the style for what I'm trying to do now.

Also apparently Battlelords have more health points in World Tour and therefore the scripted sequence in the hotel doesn't seem to kill that sheltered one in the hallway in WT, from what I've gathered from a video playthrough. Weird they'd change things up like this, or the guy had some kind of mod on, but he didn't confirm that when I asked.

[Dukebot]

ck3D, on 05 April 2020 - 04:09 AM, said:

Thank you for playing and sharing your impressions, I'm happy you liked the map so much, especially appreciate it if you rarely play user levels (these days I'm the same).

Also sorry that you got stuck after the blue key for so long, but witnessing this type of behavior also allows me to understand possible design mistakes, since that map I've learned that for fluid navigation the mapper's responsibility was to simplify the objective of every task to the extreme (which doesn't mean they can't get creative with it), I was already trying to get there in general with that level (e.g.. the slow presentation then strategic distribution of the grinch newbeasts) but now I really make sure I introduce the fancy little concepts better.

Replying to your spoilers:

It's cool that you liked the Cell Block thing, like I was saying earlier in the thread for the longest time I wanted it to be somehow playable but at the time I couldn't come up with a good concept for something as meta as a game inside the game, but thanks to your post now I actually just had a pretty clear idea of which features of the game I could use for something like that, which I'll probably implement in a later map.

I'm pretty happy with the wall fight thing too (although it's glitchy in some renderers/ports for some reason, just like some car textures in my maps suddenly look misaligned in certain conditions which I can tell from other people's playthrough videos and I don't really know why), I kind of want to reuse that concept too and maybe make it an actually interactive boss fight à la Icon of Sin except maybe I could put Randy Pitchford's head behind the masked wall instead of Romero's. Only things I'm not too happy with in that map is the supermarket fight (but you seemed to like it), how much of a slaughterfest it becomes near the end (I wanted a feeling of urgency but it was too much for some people), and how some elements of the progression aren't too obvious, also all those eggs shouldn't have been small, but it was honestly good practice and kind of set the style for what I'm trying to do now.

Also apparently Battlelords have more health points in World Tour and therefore the scripted sequence in the hotel doesn't seem to kill that sheltered one in the hallway in WT, from what I've gathered from a video playthrough. Weird they'd change things up like this, or the guy had some kind of mod on, but he didn't confirm that when I asked.

You are wellcome. Yes it had been long time since I played any user map, I used to play a lot of user maps in the past, but right now I am quite busy and I've off Duke scene for years. But yeah, it's nice to play good user maps like this every now and then!


WARNING SOPILERS AHEAD, you've been warned....


Well as map navigation it was fluid in general with the only exception of were I got stuck, didn't think by myself trying to open that door inside the vent, didn't feel like a door for me. But for the rest, I think that it's well done.

And yes, this kind of "icon of sin" yo've created is a really good thing (in fact it reminded me the icon of seen when I've seen it for the first time). You could reuse this concept in other maps and still surprise players that already played this map! Good luck on your next creations!

As for the supermarket battle, as I was playing the map in Come Get Some I was already expecting to be hard, and even if I died a few times in that area I was already prepared to experience hard combats.

As for battlelords having more HP in world tour, I didn't know that! In my case I played it with the normal Duke3D GRP + eduke32 and had no issues with your map. Also mention that I played the map with the cassic software renderer.

[ck3D]

Being on and off in the scene seems to be the case of most active mappers who prefer to go for the single map release format as opposed to big mods now, honestly it's notoriously funny because it's just timeless proof that the Build engine never leaves you, I've taken multiple hiatuses of several years myself and all this time I'd still keep reading the architecture of the places I would travel to like potential Duke Nukem levels. Just last week I've built about 500 sectors but before that I hadn't even been able to touch Mapster in months, generally I put all my luxury gaming time into the map creation process so I also very rarely get to actually play the new releases (maybe I'll find it later during the lockdown once I've gotten work that's on queue out of the way), I think most every mapper is in this type of situation to an extent right now unless they're on retirement in civilian life or live a particularly quiet lifestyle, having a more casual approach than we did as teenagers but occasionally the stars will align and levels will work and come out, the current activity in the W.I.P. projects thread is actually a delight to see, part of me feels like I'm on AMC in 2006 again.

P.S. - also yes the classic renderer is my go-to and intended presentation for maps, some of my style doesn't look too good or can appear glitchy under certain other technical conditions like I was saying, so I'm glad you got the right experience.

[Dukebot]

ck3D, on 05 April 2020 - 10:41 AM, said:

Being on and off in the scene seems to be the case of most active mappers who prefer to go for the single map release format as opposed to big mods now, honestly it's notoriously funny because it's just timeless proof that the Build engine never leaves you, I've taken multiple hiatuses of several years myself and all this time I'd still keep reading the architecture of the places I would travel to like potential Duke Nukem levels. Just last week I've built about 500 sectors but before that I hadn't even been able to touch Mapster in months, generally I put all my luxury gaming time into the map creation process so I also very rarely get to actually play the new releases (maybe I'll find it later during the lockdown once I've gotten work that's on queue out of the way), I think most every mapper is in this type of situation to an extent right now unless they're on retirement in civilian life or live a particularly quiet lifestyle, having a more casual approach than we did as teenagers but occasionally the stars will align and levels will work and come out, the current activity in the W.I.P. projects thread is actually a delight to see, part of me feels like I'm on AMC in 2006 again.

P.S. - also yes the classic renderer is my go-to and intended presentation for maps, some of my style doesn't look too good or can appear glitchy under certain other technical conditions like I was saying, so I'm glad you got the right experience.

In my case I was more a Player than a mapper, but I liked a lot to make maps when I was like 15 years old. I made some maps, but they were very noobish, they served me as learning projects. My biggest unic and decent map was reseased in 2006 in the anual mapping contest that had place in Dukespaña community (Duke community for people that speak spanish). It was an ok map, let's say it's not ugly, but it had only basic shading and some flaws aswell. But it was not a bad map, it got a 3/5 score, for me was enought. The map I am working on right now it's my next map that I started, wanted to do something bigger and better, but never finished it. Now that I have been suspended from job and I have to stay at home because of the quarintaine I have a lot of free time that I did not had before so I decided to finish that map that I wanted to do and never finished. To motivate myself decided to post in the community and get feedback, rather than mapping and staying silent. And as you said it's nice to see activity in the mapping section of the forum, I'm glad I can receive such a good feedback from you.

Also I wanted to let you know something. When I played your map the other day, I readed on the .txt file the titles of your maps. When I readed "Happy Hangover" I remember that it was one of my favorite all time maps by that date. The map was published in the arcades 3D site with a review written by me. I google translated the game review that I wrote long time ago and it says as this (it's google translator but I think it understands well):

I wouldn't know how to start, the map is really cool. The action takes place in an urban environment, and we will explore both streets and the interior of some buildings.

The map has excellent architecture, good design and many realistic details. Apart from that we will see some very original effects, but I do not want to reveal any surprises yet: if you want to check it, you must play the map yourself and discover it!

Finally, the action is intense in some parts, so even if you go with your life to the fullest and with plenty of ammunition do not trust yourself.

In short: a great level, both aesthetically and for its gameplay, very original. By the way, it exceeds the classic limits of Duke Nukem 3D, and therefore you will need some source-port to play it: with Eduke32 it works perfectly.

PD: Between the lines from the map I released and this one I am building, I did a map for the Duke Hard epìsode. It's called Flesh, and the map represent a serial killer floor.

[ck3D]

Oh right I just made the connection that you made Flesh! I just watched a video playthrough on YouTube to remember that map, really like the style, good ratio of detail all the while remaining clean and being moody. Duke Hard was a fun project, I also made a map for it, it's just two maps before yours in the episode, Commercial Break the mall floor with the Twin Peaks theme playing (admittedly a bit of a confusing map due to switch placement).

I'm glad the tricks of Happy Hangover worked on you so much and very late thank you for writing that review about it. That map was the first I designed after my first public hiatus, IIRC I was quite active 2004/2005 (I've been mapping for longer but didn't always have online access), releasing a bunch of early/rushed levels I was learning the editor with (just like you) then kind of dropped it, and came back to it with that Happy Hangover later in 2008 that was my best attempt at the time to make something that was actually of some quality. After which I released two sequels for that map and some more stuff till I slowed down in 2010, only releasing mostly more simple maps every year or two till 2015, and last year I came back again with this one (and now my current project), and my standards keep getting higher as I keep understanding more things about level design like it's a gift that just won't stop giving.

Happy Hangover is based on many locations around my hometown (like many of my older maps), I've posted comparison screenshots and photos before but maybe recognizing buildings such as this one will trip you out:



If you still have that old map of yours around, I would love to check it out. I know it's not going to be representative of your current work at all since like I was saying I can relate to having (sometimes embarrassing) old releases out, but I'm still curious, especially seeing as sometimes I like humble, but clean and fun maps.

[Dukebot]

ck3D, on 06 April 2020 - 02:12 AM, said:

Oh right I just made the connection that you made Flesh! I just watched a video playthrough on YouTube to remember that map, really like the style, good ratio of detail all the while remaining clean and being moody. Duke Hard was a fun project, I also made a map for it, it's just two maps before yours in the episode, Commercial Break the mall floor with the Twin Peaks theme playing (admittedly a bit of a confusing map due to switch placement).

I'm glad the tricks of Happy Hangover worked on you so much and very late thank you for writing that review about it. That map was the first I designed after my first public hiatus, IIRC I was quite active 2004/2005 (I've been mapping for longer but didn't always have online access), releasing a bunch of early/rushed levels I was learning the editor with (just like you) then kind of dropped it, and came back to it with that Happy Hangover later in 2008 that was my best attempt at the time to make something that was actually of some quality. After which I released two sequels for that map and some more stuff till I slowed down in 2010, only releasing mostly more simple maps every year or two till 2015, and last year I came back again with this one (and now my current project), and my standards keep getting higher as I keep understanding more things about level design like it's a gift that just won't stop giving.

Happy Hangover is based on many locations around my hometown (like many of my older maps), I've posted comparison screenshots and photos before but maybe recognizing buildings such as this one will trip you out:



If you still have that old map of yours around, I would love to check it out. I know it's not going to be representative of your current work at all since like I was saying I can relate to having (sometimes embarrassing) old releases out, but I'm still curious, especially seeing as sometimes I like humble, but clean and fun maps.

Yeah I agree this was a very fun episode, I enjoyed playing it back in the day and also doing the map. I have to play Duke Hard again because I don't remember much about it. Also would like to play your map and the other ones, included mine. I searched on my computer and finded an unfinished version of Flesh, but could not find the finished version, so I would like to play the whole episode again, even to remember how my own map was.

Happy Hangover it's a complete master piece, at least for me, I enjoyed that map a lot in the past and remember it as elite map, one of the best of all time, not only for it's architecture and realistic details but also for the originality of the map, I had never seen that kind of tricks with the build engine before. Good to see that it's inspired with real locations near your hometown (yeah I recognize that building from your map), I did the same on my map Flesh, in Fact flesh was inspired where I lived back then in 2014. The map layout tries to emultate that flat, and then I added some more invented rooms and places because the template was quite bigger than that flat.

Yes, I still have that map, it's called "Europe" and it was heavily inspired by a Doom2 map made by "Hell Knight". That map was really big, having a lot of places to explore and a lot of demons. There was like 1700 enemies and the map took like 2 hours to complete (without counting the times I loaded). I enjoyed played that kind of map and decided that I wanted to make a map with the same concept for Duke Nukem 3D. SO I started building the map with that in mind, a long map where you explore different ambientations with intense action and lot of enemies. The map it's not easy and I believe it has a part where it's not very intuitive what you need to do for progressing, but in general is quite linear. Let me know if you get stuck.

You can download the map here but don't expect too much, the map is average but I hope you enjoy it.

[ck3D]

Thanks, with help of the map name I also found other three older maps of you so I'll try to play the whole pack in succession soon, I'm sure I'll enjoy them because I can appreciate the charm of old maps, not every level has to be flawless to be fun and if anything that'll give me some good throwback of the 2000's user map stylistic trends. I kind of want to replay all of Duke Hard sometime too now.

Really happy you liked Happy Hangover that much, hopefully my new stuff will retain some of its qualities and tricks, what's kind of funny now is that if I ever were to try and recreate the same real-life environments today, they would probably look a lot different (most notably in terms of scale, I suspect everything would be twice as tall/big).

[Dukebot]

ck3D, on 07 April 2020 - 07:00 AM, said:

Thanks, with help of the map name I also found other three older maps of you so I'll try to play the whole pack in succession soon, I'm sure I'll enjoy them because I can appreciate the charm of old maps, not every level has to be flawless to be fun and if anything that'll give me some good throwback of the 2000's user map stylistic trends. I kind of want to replay all of Duke Hard sometime too now.

Really happy you liked Happy Hangover that much, hopefully my new stuff will retain some of its qualities and tricks, what's kind of funny now is that if I ever were to try and recreate the same real-life environments today, they would probably look a lot different (most notably in terms of scale, I suspect everything would be twice as tall/big).

To be honest that other two maps are very old and noob maps. I don't count as map because they were the first maps I ever did for practicing and I published them on a spanish forum long time ago. Somehow they remained uploaded somewere, but they are bad looking maps. Europe it's the less bad of all of those but still could be Improved a lot.

Well maybe in real life things are bigger, but in the case of your map I found that scale perfect. But I will have to replay it anytime soon because last time I played it was long time ago. I can tell you that I remember the (SPOILER IS COMMING) duke is drunk effects that found super original and interesting. But I would like to play it again to refresh my memory, but my overall memory is that was a wonderfull map.

[ck3D]

Radar made a video of this map. He used AMC TC like he typically does these days and so some stuff, such as the shrinker sections, are a bit broken; also, with that mod, the ending apparently crashes the game (which I suspect has something to do with the amount of spawns upon the activation of just one trigger; you can see him experience the exact same issue in several parts of CBP9 in his video for that map).



Looking back, there really is a lot of design and progression flaws in there that I would try and avoid nowadays. But I liked how he used the platforming to get to the last key lock, as opposed to the elevator and then, as 'punishment' for the skip, all the events and spawns get triggered in reverse order behind his back as he 'backtracks' - yet it a way that doesn't break sequencing. That was my intention to begin with 'just in case' the player would choose that route but I didn't think many would even notice the possibility of it, so that was cool to witness in action.

Also pretty funny (6/10) tripmine death as he enters the power station.

[ck3D]

Nacho is just about to start streaming his blind discovery of this level, here's the link if folks want to come hang:

[Nacho]

It was a great map! So fascinating seeing you and others change and evolve in their mapping journey. I think this was really a great introduction into the Christmas spirit, Duke style!

Those presents opening at the strike of midnight (in-game) was a nice touch and I think the city itself was well done with a lot to see and do where each section felt unique yet cohesive.