#19
Posted 29 October 2020 - 04:06 PM
Apartment 02: a cool little introduction to the episode, I liked the general layout with this puzzle of rooms but the toughness of the start with Pigcops thrown under my nose in tight corners paired up with all the dark areas that were pitch black to me was a bit frustrating. Still the experience doesn't overstay its welcome, in general I think the map would have hit stronger had it been built on a larger scale because here I was indeed always hugging the walls. Also I spent quite a while looking for the red key lock before ending the map and couldn't find it, I guess it must have been to access a secret area or something since it wasn't mandatory to access the Nukebutton so I left with a spare red key. Took fifteen minutes but I must have been wandering around the level looking for health/ammo/the red keylock for half that timespan before finally leaving. Found a few secrets, already forgot how many.
Bus Depot: now this one was great, all the issues I was mentioning regarding the cramped scale are gone, there was a great liberty of movement in open spaces, a great floor plan for the bus depot itself with those extra floors and X-shaped type of layout. Had a couple of issues with dark places again but it wasn't as oppressive as in the opening map at all, it was mostly the ventilation shafts here and not entire rooms. I think there might be an invisible wall leftover near the beginning as hugging the wall on the left side of the door of the first building just as I left it blocked me against nothing (didn't check in Mapster though so maybe it was a game bug). Liked the large parking lot with the buses and the fights there too, tanks were a nice touch even though I wasn't expecting them that early. Last metro station also looked really nice. So far there's been quite the amount of doors in those maps which has been kind of messing with my head, but I'm enjoying the exploration, I just tend to get lost a bit as the layouts can be a bit labyrinthine. Found 3 secrets, missed 4.
So far there are two things I would recommend as gameplay improvements, 1/ would be to stay away from decorative doors in levels that are especially door heavy (but I've noticed you don't necessarily abuse them) and 2/ this one is pretty important, I think fire extinguishers should never be just decorative and always generate some kind of destruction in the wall because it's tempting for a player who gets stuck to shoot them all to try and unlock a path, only to waste ammo and maybe even health for nothing if the sprite is just a prop. Also I've noticed a lot of them clip into the nearby walls (and so do certain enemies through certain doors) because they're placed so close to them but maybe that's an eDuke thing.
Now I'll keep playing and will edit this post later with my impressions on the other levels. So far the episode feels rather canonic (especially Bus Depot with a strong central theme and nice clean aesthetics) and was built with taste and coherence, it's quite the instant classic.
EDIT -
Metro Line: Damn I was expecting to really like this one but honestly the sprites getting in the way made the whole experience so claustrophobic and unrealistic (having to jump over the seats, avoid the bars etc.) I'm sorry to say it really annoyed me. Plus the location of the blue keycard made no sense to me, I spent fifteen minutes trying to find it using logic and going back and forth from one end to the train to the other only to have to cheat in Mapster and realize it was waiting behind a random door in a pitch black place. Concept is cool but this is an even better example than the first map of one that could have really benefitted from a bigger scale or a different construction, decorative clutter should never get in the way like this, I would have preferred if none of it had collision. Also opening every door to find myself nose to nose with a Pigcop is starting to grow old real quick, lol. Design-wise it was cool with some creative use of the textures but built on a scale 25% larger would have been a lot more practical in my opinion.
12 Floor: Now this one was exciting, I really liked the focus on vertical exploration, and although the hallways in the hotel were simplistic with that texture (and redundant with those fake doors) I thought they looked all the more realistic, it really conveyed the feel of some motel chain. Vents were again too dark and then I realized the fresh eDuke install I'm using to play this had the wrong renderer set up by default, which explains a lot of my former frustration regarding the darkness. Unfortunately I did run out of jetpack super quick trying to explore the heights of the map to find more windows, unlike Merlijn finding my way around the level and which places could be explored (the higher sections of some vents and elevators but not some others, building windows that were transparent or not etc.) took me a lot of time and trial and error, so that one jetpack in the trashcan on the street wasn't enough. I would recommend hiding an extra jetpack on each floor, really as the rest of the map rewards exploration. It also took me forever to realize the rooftop I was supposed to access wasn't the one of the hotel, but I should have been paying more attention to the view screen. General observation but I think it's weird that aliens can shoot through certain windows everywhere in your maps, you should definitely make those blockable and/or change the monster set-up, I think monsters should only be able to shoot through fences or breakable glass but not plain glass textures.
Office Rush: I thought this one was nothing short of the perfect office map, design looked really unique and the floor plan and navigation was a lot better and more intuitive to me here. Pipebomb puzzle was really nice and a good remember of how the previous map had ended, I'm not sure I would have found that vent easily without the security camera too so it's good that you put it (I explored that shelf early in the map but missed the vent the first time around and kept going assuming there was nothing there, until I saw the hint).
Haunted Asylum: Had to bump the gamma up and turn my lights off to play this one or I wouldn't have been able to see anything, maybe that's why I turned out to really like it, the spooky theme with the Octabrains and transparent enemies is carried out really well (although some of the Commanders encounters and behind-your-back respawns are pretty cheap) and the design and texture set is very simple but elegant, I really like the hallways and that broken floorboard was really sweet, I think I noticed a secret there but couldn't open it. I spotted two or three doors you forgot to fix the panning of, unless that was intentional (the textures on the corridor side, maybe there are more on the other side in some the rooms). Maybe that's also why I spotted the red key right away unlike Merlijn and Mikko, I could tell there was something behind that wall from two different locations and in terms of progression, here it made sense not to go back to the area before the blue key door and there were only so many rooms past that point. Found it by pressing that one portrait by the way, usually when you hide a switch behind decoration like this I'd recommend to make the decorative item look a bit off or out of place, for instance here you could have used just one portrait on that wall and/or maybe hung it upside down. Also here the fake doors bothered me a little less since a lot more of the doors in the level could be opened and the layout was rather straightforward, so there was more reward for the effort and less confusion. Map took me 16 minutes and the last twist was a nice touch. Maybe my favorite of the pack so far (and one of the most memorable for sure).
Mess Mall!: Oh holy shit, now this one is by far my favorite. Fantastic design, gameplay flew like (flying) butter, perfect use of the respawns and general monster placement. Loved the unusual texturing choice for a mall coupled with the few neons and creative shop windows, and also the layout with top and bottom floor. I kept the gamma up from the last level to play this one though, so I can understand why people would complain about it being too dark, it's actually quite a shame the beauty of this map is so hidden in the darkness, it's OK to make dark maps but in my opinion then you should adjust the visibility of the whole map accordingly (bump it up, maybe to the max) so that it never becomes playable despite its qualities. Loved the mood, progression, action, everything in this level, nothing bad to say about it besides the visibility thing; could easily see it fit as a bonus level in LA Meltdown in my opinion, sandwiched in between E1L1 and E1L2, like the equivalent of Freeway in Shrapnel City, that's how much it impressed me.
New Stadium: sweet way of wrapping it up and a nice tribute to the original game, honestly this pristine stadium with all the nice blue seats and sweet colors looked so sweet it's all my eyes could catch during the firefight, too bad the boss is so easy. I was disappointed that you kept it stuck in place when you could have had it walk across the arena though, here it was a bit anticlimactic getting ready for a tough fight only to end up shooting a still target.
Thank you for your work and I hope to see more of your levels in the future, that was a great experience! And congrats again on the release! Cheers.
This post has been edited by ck3D: 29 October 2020 - 08:04 PM
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