[Geoffrey]

Hey all!

I recently found two threads asking for some specific older maps of mine (FUTURE and SP1G) which are apparently nowhere to be found. Since I've gotten interested in mapping again recently (for Doom though) I thought it'd be nice to see what old stuff I could find, and in the meanwhile dig up these two specific maps as well.

So here's a zip with a couple of old maps, but also a whole lot of unfinished stuff - some playable, most no more than a couple of rooms or corridors that might still be interesting to look at. Feel free to use these unfinished maps for whatever you want, and apologies in advance for the period in which I thought PAL4 was a legitimate texture.


EDIT: Added one map I forgot to the zip and removed _ZOO which I accidentally added.

Attached File(s)

•  Old Unreleased Unfinished.zip (3.1MB)
  Number of downloads: 307

[Geoffrey]

And some screenshots

Attached thumbnail(s)

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[quakis]

Geoffrey, on 01 February 2022 - 02:54 AM, said:

Since I've gotten interested in mapping again recently (for Doom though)

Neat, just don't forget to give us a heads up when something gets released though! I'm always curious to see the non-Duke related output from those in this community.

[Sangman]

Geoffrey returns only to announce he's mapping for Doom. You break my heart, sir

Welcome back though man, hope you're doing well.

[ck3D]

I was just thinking it would be great to see new stuff from you the other day after you bumped that other thread. 2021 already had the William Gee comeback which was fantastic. Welcome back to 2.5D hell - always loved your style and you dropped one comment on AMC once that really influenced my Duke 3D mapping eventually, about 'puzzles in camouflage'. And yes, please keep us posted about those Doom maps, curious about them even though I don't really play Doom.

[Jblade]

good to see you're doing alright Geoffrey; we're still keeping the AMC TC fires lit even if it's completely unrecognisable defo interested to see Doom stuff from you at least, you can always join up to our discord if you want to catch up.

[Anvil]

Which of the unknown finished maps are single player?

[Geoffrey]

Hey all! Good to see you're still here!

quakis, on 01 February 2022 - 11:06 AM, said:

Neat, just don't forget to give us a heads up when something gets released though! I'm always curious to see the non-Duke related output from those in this community.

Sangman, on 01 February 2022 - 02:19 PM, said:

Geoffrey returns only to announce he's mapping for Doom. You break my heart, sir

ck3D, on 01 February 2022 - 02:54 PM, said:

(...) and you dropped one comment on AMC once that really influenced my Duke 3D mapping eventually, about 'puzzles in camouflage'. And yes, please keep us posted about those Doom maps, curious about them even though I don't really play Doom.

I love that you brought that up ck3D - because that's exactly what got me interested in maps again. I love levels that function like mental puzzle boxes. This is why I chose to use Doom instead of Duke3d, since Duke's always been grounded in a form of realism and Doom is more abstract. The unfinished usermap.map in the zip is the last thing I ever did for Duke, and here I was already trying to move away from real life environments. I have released my first Doom map over at Doomworld if you're interested!

Jblade, on 01 February 2022 - 03:49 PM, said:

good to see you're doing alright Geoffrey; we're still keeping the AMC TC fires lit even if it's completely unrecognisable defo interested to see Doom stuff from you at least, you can always join up to our discord if you want to catch up.

Hey James! I've kept myself in the loop with the AMC TC over the years and I love what a beast of a mod it's become. It's huge! And on occasion I've shown friends playthroughs on youtube to laugh at my delivery of "that THING is flying a little too close to MY head". By the way, I've also found a couple of Survival backups on my old pc and it was great to see yours and Rusty's map in there. It still holds up, even with it being majorly incomplete. I'm afraid I hardly use Discord though, but I'll be sure to keep an eye on the tc's progress!

Anvil, on 01 February 2022 - 07:40 PM, said:

Which of the unknown finished maps are single player?

I'm afraid I don't know what you mean with unknown finished? The finished maps in the zip have all been released at some point, and the unfinished maps are, for the most part, unplayable. I'd recommend checking those out in Mapster. The released maps that are single player are FBSP001/2/3, SP1, CANDC and !lapfeet.

[Jblade]

Quote

Hey James! I've kept myself in the loop with the AMC TC over the years and I love what a beast of a mod it's become. It's huge! And on occasion I've shown friends playthroughs on youtube to laugh at my delivery of "that THING is flying a little too close to MY head". By the way, I've also found a couple of Survival backups on my old pc and it was great to see yours and Rusty's map in there. It still holds up, even with it being majorly incomplete. I'm afraid I hardly use Discord though, but I'll be sure to keep an eye on the tc's progress!

warms my heart, thanks my man!

[ck3D]

Geoffrey, on 03 February 2022 - 12:54 AM, said:

I love that you brought that up ck3D - because that's exactly what got me interested in maps again. I love levels that function like mental puzzle boxes. This is why I chose to use Doom instead of Duke3d, since Duke's always been grounded in a form of realism and Doom is more abstract. The unfinished usermap.map in the zip is the last thing I ever did for Duke, and here I was already trying to move away from real life environments. I have released my first Doom map over at Doomworld if you're interested!

That's actually great hearing you actually committed to that direction too in a way, the way you worded it that one time I remember definitely helped me take some perspective from the figurative aspects of Duke maps in general which was especially needed in the late 00's/early 10's when going overboard with pseudo-photorealistic level of detail was a must, of course that resulted in a lot of amazing Build porn and none of that experimentation I think was ever in vain but I seem to remember at the time the community was getting a bit stale with everyone growing tired of basically always repeating the same visual patterns from level to level, yearning for creativity but after a while not really knowing where to find it anymore. When games like Duke 3D are games the average player dives in to basically run fast, jump around and interact at large, so those are the mechanics I find make the most sense to articulate levels around as opposed to meticulous little detail first and foremost (aesthetics do matter a lot, but they don't have to imitate life).

I think it's actually OK these days to make Duke 3D maps that lean towards abstraction a bit more, and that by now people have realized how what matters the most to players is raw fun and detail - or credibility altogether in a game where you shrink aliens and start jumping off a building - can literally be fine as long as it doesn't get in the way. I've been attracted to Doom mapping before myself (and probably would have given it a try at some point if I still had the game) with similar aspirations but in the end I always stuck with Duke 3D due to familiarity, the trademark non-Euclidian possibilities (which I think might have been ported into Doom to an extent? I don't know my shit) and how wildly you get to manipulate the terrain in 'real time' if you really want to. I think I'm especially enjoying that challenge of the constant search for some happy medium between abstract level blockouts and Duke's more wannabe realistic-looking assets, actually. Seeing how far you can disguise something purely practical yet otherwise nonsensical into a city, space station or whichever more or less niche theme you assign yourself to I find to be lots of fun, and oftentimes just basic sector creation of what most intend as decorative material can easily be turned into an active gameplay element if you can think of the right idea (which often starts by articulating the latter around the former and not the other way around, released base Duke 3D was actually great at that).

Doom map looks cool, I need to finish one of those videos but feels like a wise mix of creative and classic. It's pretty crazy how judging from that thread it totally seems to be common practice for people in the Doom community to post videos of their playthroughs in the release thread as feedback, no? That's the impression I'm getting from that thread at least, I think that's great, major source of direct feedback from player to mapper, not just rewarding but also informative. More and more people are 'DukeTubers' now but we're not at that stage of standardization yet, would be cool if the Duke 3D community eventually got there. Streams are pretty much an alternative (and less interactive) way to 'consume' a level or game now, and in a weird way it's kind of cool how the shift in medium type almost crystallizes the human effort that was put into the makings of the featured map.

[Geoffrey]

With Duke it's a weird combination of arcade gameplay and realism, that's for sure. The ROCH maps were always awesome to see but it did feel somewhat weird running through them at lightning speed. That sortof half-realism Lameduke has fits really well though! Or the sci-fi that Ion Fury pulled off.

About the gameplay videos: I didn't know that was a thing either. But I loved seeing people run through my map (and I made some changes based on what I saw).

[ck3D]

Completely agree with you on the whole Lameduke/dystopian theme being for flexible that way, although thinking about it a lot of maps pulled off just that in Duke 3D by coming closer to that type of design (thinking Billy Boy's Biglight or maps like Decay, Traffic Jam). I think you might appreciate oasiz's Duke map Slum Noir: https://forums.duke4...ease-slum-noir/ if you've missed it and maybe find it all the more interesting now that the words Ion Fury have been thrown.

Doesn't really surprise me how general Lameduke popularity and interest skyrocketed (I feel like) just around the time people started getting bored of more detailed but also more dull maps now, they were mostly yearning for different gameplay mechanics to feel fresh again.

But I remember seeing that kind of approach at its inception in some of your older Duke levels as well, mostly FBSP003. Haven't played that map in forever though so I'm going off foggy memories; I should use this opportunity to give it another spin.

(Appreciate you putting up with the wall of text by the way, word count can be my kryptonite due to mostly posting when zoinked the fuck out)

[Merlijn]

Welcome back Geoffrey, and thanks for sharing all that stuff!
Some cool stuff in there, I especially liked the unfinished jail map.

[Aleks]

Hey Geoffrey, nice to see you around, always cool to see old people back from AMC days re-appearing in the scene (which was also the case for me about 2 years ago, although after a much longer hiatus - I was known as ShrinkDuke back in the day)

Few months ago we "roasted" you (along with Highwire) in the Duke Map/Dod of the Month Club, where we play and comment on maps or mods by the same author throughout a month - you might want to check it out for yourself and revive these moments: https://forums.duke4...ub-august-2021/

(Also now reading back on my comments there, I've noticed I wrote about being inspired by DukeVR to make a similar puzzle mod, which I just released last month).

As for the "artistic preference", I'd say Duke is as capable as Doom in making abstract/outwordly settings, just also more versatile, so allowing for more realistic environments as well. There's also the "non-Euclidean" engine geometry...

[Geoffrey]

Hey Merlijn!

ck3D, on 05 February 2022 - 03:51 PM, said:

But I remember seeing that kind of approach at its inception in some of your older Duke levels as well, mostly FBSP003. Haven't played that map in forever though so I'm going off foggy memories; I should use this opportunity to give it another spin.

I'd say FBSP003 does well with the city bit, but the indoor areas feel uninspired to me. They're quick versions of something resembling a bank, metro and bookstore, but never more than that. Maybe I'm too harsh though.

Aleks, on 07 February 2022 - 01:00 PM, said:

Few months ago we "roasted" you (along with Highwire) in the Duke Map/Dod of the Month Club, where we play and comment on maps or mods by the same author throughout a month - you might want to check it out for yourself and revive these moments: https://forums.duke4...ub-august-2021/

(Also now reading back on my comments there, I've noticed I wrote about being inspired by DukeVR to make a similar puzzle mod, which I just released last month).

That was a good read, thanks! And I just saw your puzzle mod thread, I'll be sure to check it out!