[Sanek]

"Well done, it did manage to have me on edge and surprise me." - Merlijn Van Oostrum (tested by)

Dark Station is a sequel and at the same time kinda prequel to Dark Seed, the space-themed map I released 2 years ago (can't beelive it's that long ago already). I'd say that Alien: Isolation was the major source of inspiration this time, and there's a whole room dedicated to Aliens movie as well. In contrast to Dark Seed, there's no viewscreens with walls of text to read - I decided to make the map speak for itself! There's 3 distinctive chapters in the map, which will have different types of exploration, from slow to hectic to crazy!

I'd say that it's a little bit more spookier this time around, and midway through it goes into survival horror territory! Save your ammo and use holoduke if you want to live! No music this time around; please don't use any while playing. Also update your eduke - the old builds (6+ months old) ruins the expierence because of some door-related issues. Modern builds have some annoying sprites-ducking issues, but otherwise it's fine.

It's not action-heavy map, but you'll move around a lot and it's kinda spooky, it must be be entertaing for some! I hope you'll enjoy it!

Attached File(s)

•  Dark Station.rar (90.42K)
  Number of downloads: 392

[Seb Luca]

Well done, but I often ran out of ammo quickly

[Merlijn]

It's a really cool map, I was happy to test it!

The map is more about trying to survive than it is about shooting aliens.
It's somewhat similar to Anarchy City X in that regard.

Spoiler

Although you eventually do get your hands on some stronger weapons

[Radar]

It's a fine level in the same spirit of survival horror maps that Puritan used to make. Nice work.

[Mister Sinister]

I used doors to kill every new beast in the second section. It's a fine level, but what's up with stretched textures? They're all over the map

[Sanek]

Thanks guys, I'm glad that you liked it!

@Mister Sinister That's not the way to play the map. Sure, a newbeast or two can die because of it, but using doors in such fashion is abuse of the system.

As for "stretched textures" - everything looks the way it should be. There's nothing that sticks out as bad or inappropriate.

[Mister Sinister]

Oh, don't worry, I played the map the intended way, I just used another save file to play the map that way.

[ck3D]

Haven't found the time to play this yet but still wanted to bump the thread. Looks good, will try ASAP, hopefully today. I'm really happy that it looks like you've been focusing more on shading/lighting!

[ck3D]

Haven't found the time yet but thought I'd bump this thread again with Mikko's review: https://msdn.duke4.n...darkstation.php

I don't know if he still lurks the boards but on a side note, I think he's brave to keep the reviews coming after all these years without ever really burning out on that stuff. Just some free public appreciation.

[Seb Luca]

ck3D, on 11 January 2020 - 04:03 AM, said:

Haven't found the time yet but thought I'd bump this thread again with Mikko's review: https://msdn.duke4.n...darkstation.php

Quote

Rating: 92

GG, Sanek !!!

[Sanek]

ck3D, on 11 January 2020 - 04:03 AM, said:

Haven't found the time yet but thought I'd bump this thread again with Mikko's review: https://msdn.duke4.n...darkstation.php

Yeah, I'm glad that he liked the map - 92 is the score I haven't seen in years!. I don't know how he missed the room with boots though, as it's very hard to navigate the electric floor area without it. And it's pretty much possible to open the door by shooting buttions and evade the drones. Sure, a drone or two will end up chasing you, but dealing with only a couple of enemies is much easier than the whole horde.

I also like that despite the small size of the map, it have some kind of replayability. I honestly build it with one kind of tactic in mind.

What I don't like is that there's not more reviews atm (despite the number of upvotes), but I hope it'll improve in the future.

[Dukebot]

Playing some user maps now that I have extra free time due to the quarintine. Just played this map and I have to say it's a great map. I readed in the description that it's inspired mainly by alien isolation and I felt that in the actual game. The inmersion it's very accomplished and you feel like being in a true survival horror story. It was a mix feeling of alien isolation and Resident Evil. The map has very well design, nice architecture, nice play with lights and shadows and also it has some very interesting details. It's a beautifull map, with a very original gameplay and also fun and entertaining to play (even if hard at first).

SPOILERS AHEAD... I liked a lot to run from those aliens and play cat and mouse with them. It was scary at fun at the same time. First I started with the strategy of locking aliens inside a room, but after a while I got tried and actually developed strategy to kill them, trapping them in a room 1 by 1 and them kicking them with my foot. Also I managed to kill some of aliens squishing them with doors, it was actually very fun. I managed to get lot of shotgun ammo, but in the end, I never found the shootgun. Anyway the most used weapon for me has been the food.

Congratulations for this great and original map, I enjoyed playing it and I would recommend other player to play it!

[Sanek]

Thanks Dukebot! Glad that you're enjoyed the map!

Dukebot, on 08 April 2020 - 07:13 AM, said:

I managed to get lot of shotgun ammo, but in the end, I never found the shootgun.

There's a whole section dedicated to crew quarters, there's a shotgun and stuff, how could you miss it? On the other hand, some player missed the room warehouse with boots in it so I don't blame anybody.

[ck3D]

You'll be surprised when you realize how much we, authors, tend to overestimate the ability of the average player to find and explore all the rooms, nooks and crannies, etc. we put in our maps. I've had experienced players (reviewers, even) complain to me that they couldn't find the shotgun or chaingun in some of my levels where you start just in front of the thing, before. The more levels I make, the more I try to simplify this type of peregrination by making this type of key point in the progression of the level super obvious; the true interesting challenge is managing just that for gameplay clarity all the while never dumbing the level down. I almost feel like I'm trolling myself with the visual clues I've been throwing in lately sometimes (as though a counter effect of the gameplay in my older levels making a lot less sense), but fundamentally the game can always use those. Simplifying without vulgarizing is possible, it just takes some time to refine one's grasp on how to do it, actually I'm still learning that too, with every new map element I find myself designing these days.

Kind of playing devil's advocate here because adventure/exploration-based levels were my first love, I actually really like getting lost in massive maps and searching around for the stuff I need, as long as the level is fair. Just a random observation is all - basic logic is the more perspectives an author considers besides their own, the better their work as long as said work remains sincere, and they use the other players' experiences and comments to nurture that sincerity in the creative process (as opposed to opposing it in fear of losing some kind of identity, for instance, which seems like a common pattern).

[Dukebot]

@Sanek Well thanks to not finding the shotgun I learned new strategies about how to kill those aliens with the foot hahaha. It was an enjoyable experience.

@ck3D What you said about making obvious to the player it's very interesting. This is what I am actually trying to do in my map. I am focusing on free exploration of the player while not hiding anything too much that might make the player get stuck. In fact I belive that the difficulty of my map will rely on the action rather than finding switches or know what to do in order to advance as my main focus is action and exploration.

[ck3D]

Dukebot, on 18 April 2020 - 03:44 PM, said:

@ck3D What you said about making obvious to the player it's very interesting. This is what I am actually trying to do in my map. I am focusing on free exploration of the player while not hiding anything too much that might make the player get stuck. In fact I belive that the difficulty of my map will rely on the action rather than finding switches or know what to do in order to advance as my main focus is action and exploration.

Honestly in most of my older levels, the progression was rather obscure (in a way that made sense to me, the author, just not to most everybody else and that was despite my best attempts at detaching myself from my own perspective). These days I just make map layouts quite explicit with directions (which doesn't make them any less complex) and I'm really not afraid to use really large and bright structures, sprites and colorful light sources that can be seen from across most of the level when said level calls for it due to size, etc. Surely there are plenty of cool ways to come up with such visual clues.

I first started doing it after reading some essays on FPS level design, was skeptical at first but quickly realized that eventually, what you get in addition to the smoother progression is more gigantic structures in your level that tower over the player and look impressive from distance, so I'd say the trade off is more than worth it. Making them destructible can provide a certain twist on how the level plays depending on what happens during the run, too.

[Dukebot]

ck3D, on 18 April 2020 - 04:18 PM, said:

Honestly in most of my older levels, the progression was rather obscure (in a way that made sense to me, the author, just not to most everybody else and that was despite my best attempts at detaching myself from my own perspective). These days I just make map layouts quite explicit with directions (which doesn't make them any less complex) and I'm really not afraid to use really large and bright structures, sprites and colorful light sources that can be seen from across most of the level when said level calls for it due to size, etc. Surely there are plenty of cool ways to come up with such visual clues.

I first started doing it after reading some essays on FPS level design, was skeptical at first but quickly realized that eventually, what you get in addition to the smoother progression is more gigantic structures in your level that tower over the player and look impressive from distance, so I'd say the trade off is more than worth it. Making them destructible can provide a certain twist on how the level plays depending on what happens during the run, too.

I get your point. On my first levels I wasn't even thinking about making life easier to the player. I was making the map hard and with things that weren't intuitive, to have player wandering around and things like that. Ofcourse now I want to help the player to play the map, putting obstacles in the way, but obstacles that are fun, not things that frustate the player and make them quit the game.

Now I am thinking more on this way because lot of years passed after I did those maps. Also now on my free time I am learning game engines to program games from scratch so I've developed the habit to focus a lot on the psycology of the player when playing your game, making things intuitive to him to understand. So this applies when mapping, the level designer is responsible to guide the player in the map and make the experience enjoyable. So I am putting a lot of effort on my map to accomplish that for the first time in my life! I Hope the end result is good.

[ck3D]

Dukebot, on 18 April 2020 - 05:07 PM, said:

I get your point. On my first levels I wasn't even thinking about making life easier to the player. I was making the map hard and with things that weren't intuitive, to have player wandering around and things like that. Ofcourse now I want to help the player to play the map, putting obstacles in the way, but obstacles that are fun, not things that frustate the player and make them quit the game.

Now I am thinking more on this way because lot of years passed after I did those maps. Also now on my free time I am learning game engines to program games from scratch so I've developed the habit to focus a lot on the psycology of the player when playing your game, making things intuitive to him to understand. So this applies when mapping, the level designer is responsible to guide the player in the map and make the experience enjoyable. So I am putting a lot of effort on my map to accomplish that for the first time in my life! I Hope the end result is good.

Out of a few I've read, a few months ago I shared this article I found a while back in which a lot of the points being made helped me reconsider making progression more obvious, a lot of the illustrations mostly apply to more modern games but to my surprise, implemented in Duke 3D the processes and habits actually led to (personally) satisfying results in that department:

ck3D, on 29 November 2019 - 09:25 AM, said:

My wee contribution to the list: https://medium.com/i...gn-e187e45c744c

It's a popular article, nothing veteran mappers should be surprised with or not have figured out by themselves, yet still a great checklist of reminders, translating those over to Duke mapping is a lot of fun and makes one realize at least 95% of user maps for that game fail in at least one of those departments - which sometimes only add to their respective charms, but if anything it's always interesting to consider alternative ways to make a level work.

I'm totally with you on your second paragraph as well, that's a key thing to understand not just in video games but production processes in general. It's kind of funny how what might feel like 'dumbing down' the utilization of something to make it more practical actually ends up working in the product's favor (again, if no sacrifice is made in the creative process itself, which should remain anchored in spontaneity and originality per se - otherwise the whole point is missing).

If you ever want me to beta test your map pre-release, feel free to shoot me a PM when it's done, I'll try to find the time - and I still need to play Sanek's map too (maybe I should stop hi-jacking his thread in the meantime).

[Dukebot]

ck3D, on 18 April 2020 - 05:16 PM, said:

Out of a few I've read, a few months ago I shared this article I found a while back in which a lot of the points being made helped me reconsider making progression more obvious, a lot of the illustrations mostly apply to more modern games but to my surprise, implemented in Duke 3D the processes and habits actually led to (personally) satisfying results in that department.

Thanks for sharing, the resource it's very appreciated. I will have a look to it soon.

ck3D, on 18 April 2020 - 05:16 PM, said:

I'm totally with you on your second paragraph as well, that's a key thing to understand not just in video games but production processes in general. It's kind of funny how what might feel like 'dumbing down' the utilization of something to make it more practical actually ends up working in the product's favor (again, if no sacrifice is made in the creative process itself, which should remain anchored in spontaneity and originality per se - otherwise the whole point is missing).

Yeah. My phylosofy on this kind of things is simplicity. Keep things simple for the player. Even if the game/map/wathever has very complex mechanics behind the scenes, everything should be presented simple and easy to understand. This is because the majority of the player's when playing a game, want's to relax and have some fun without having to put much effort, like reading or watching a move, it's a simple task to do. I believe that most of the players, when playing a game, play this way, gaming is a way for relaxing. On the other hand there is a more hardcore player which is more rare. This kind of player enjoys challenges and putting his skills to limit. On this case, this kind of player miight prefer maps without any help or guidance. I tended to be a more "hardcore" gamer in the past, but right now, I don't have that much time for gaming and also I got other stuff in life going on, so when I play I look for an enjoyable experience and not for a big challenge. This is just my opinion, but I think modern games are this way because this way they have more public and as a result more selling.

ck3D, on 18 April 2020 - 05:16 PM, said:

If you ever want me to beta test your map pre-release, feel free to shoot me a PM when it's done, I'll try to find the time - and I still need to play Sanek's map too (maybe I should stop hi-jacking his thread in the meantime).

Thank you so much, sure I will need tester and nice feedback for make last polishments pre-release. I'll be happy if you can do that (if you have time ofcourse) .

[Merlijn]

I feel like this topic should get its own thread, it's pretty interesting and useful.
I enjoyed reading that link, ck3d. A lot of those things do apply to DN3D mapping as well.

[Dukebot]

Merlijn, on 19 April 2020 - 03:14 AM, said:

I feel like this topic should get its own thread, it's pretty interesting and useful.
I enjoyed reading that link, ck3d. A lot of those things do apply to DN3D mapping as well.

Now it has! https://forums.duke4...-design-thread/ =)