[ck3D]

Hi, here's a new map for Duke 3D Atomic (well it mostly uses 1.3d assets minus the Pig Cop Tank, a couple of Duke lines and that one exposed electrical wire sprite), doesn't go over the old limits so should be compatible with more than eDuke32. It's a very loose reimagining of Allen Blum's Freeway from episode 3 from the base game, I started it six days ago just for kicks trying to keep up with Aleks' 'mappening' on the Duke4 Discord and eventually kept going, it's a speed map so don't expect much. It only recycles concepts and thematics from Freeway, the ROR-based layout being my main interest but the gameplay is something else. The dynamic central element not might, but will disturb certain patterns (most especially the RPV's), all in good fun though, hopefully.

Supports all difficulty settings (with strong differences between each, CGS - intended - can get pretty hardcore), as well as SP/Coop/DM. Should take the experienced player roughly 20 to 30 minutes to beat going in blind I suppose. It's all fresh and built on a whim so in a way I'm still testing it and will be for the next couple of days, but having completed full traversal a few times I think it's ready to be shared and shouldn't warrant any update unless someone notices a crucial issue. Enjoy if you can!

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Attached File(s)

•  turnpike.rar (70.87K)
  Number of downloads: 213

[Quacken]

Took me an hour, but I knocked this beast out just now. Boy, what a beast this map was. As someone who's been following your Blast Radius project, I was interested in playing this map to get accustomed to your mapping style.

Turnpike is like Freeway if you stripped it of all its survival horror elements and instead injected it with more illegal substances than an Olympic athlete could dream of. It's an aggressive 45-minute long adrenaline rush that slams the accelerator pedal as soon as you peek your head out into the main corridor, and it never lets go after that. A decent majority of the 726 monsters are just Protozoids and their Eggs. Ordinarily this would be a miserable cleanup, but I'm very glad you decided to give out a functionally infinite supply of Pipe Bombs to clear the opening swathes of monsters out. Blowing up a spill of Protozoids or Octabrains with a single Pipe Bomb is music to my ears. The combat is definitely the best part of this map; it's consistently excellent and engaging, and you use the open space very well. One notable fight for me is the one that gets triggered immediately after using the red key. This is a genuinely great use of Sentry Drones. They're an immediate threat that you either have to take care of up close while a cloud of Octabrains and Assault Commanders, plus three Battlelords riding around on the vehicles constantly divert your attention, or you brave passing the highway and the extremely janky vehicles while under the threat of being suicide bombed by the Drones. Top notch work! This fight got me a ton of times.

The use of the Jetpack letting you access non-secret rooftops with optional goodies is a really nice gesture as well. Rather than blocking some of these areas off with invisible walls, it's as if the map is saying to you "Oh you used the Jetpack to get up to this crack in a high-rise building? Nice work, here's a colony of Protozoids for you to blow up and some nice supplies". Giving the player gratifying non-secret areas by using their inventory items is a nice way of making sure the player is always doing something fun if they ever happen to get lost. It's also beneficial that this map is pretty straight forward in its progression, making so that getting lost usually doesn't happen for long stretches of the run time. Helping with the map experience is the MIDI. I don't know if you made this or it's sourced from somewhere else, but it greatly complements the action, and it contributed a significant amount to the map as a whole.

My one major complaint with this map is that the vehicles (all of them) are sometimes pretty aggravatingly janky. The two buildings in the first big arena are pretty inconsequential, but they like to push monsters around as they move... including monsters in the air, which makes trying to snipe things out of the air sometimes a bit of a headache. This is even further amplified in the main highway. The cars here are essentially just big boxes that will magically run you over, even while Jetpacking over them. Navigating the roads and fighting monsters that will inevitably be caught in the traffic by supernatural forces is quite uncomfortable sometimes, as you're forced either onto the railing or onto the very edge of the road, where the deathly rectangles just barely miss you. This was quite unlucky for me personally, because all of the Battlelords at the fight after the red key got caught in the traffic, and it took some save scumming to kill each of them.

Despite this offset though, Turnpike is a slam dunk. It's a rip roaring jungle gym of energy and carnage, and more than ever, I'm extremely excited for Blast Radius' release. You've earned yourself a new fan, my good sir!

9.5/10.

[Dr.Panico]

Wow! This map was WILD. It kicked ass in every meaning of the term. Very action-packed and surprisingly very challenging. If this is what you can do on a speed map, imagine what you can acomplish when you take your time to make a level. Playing this just made more excited for Blast Radius!
This level can really test a player's gameplay style: for instance, I've recently created a habit on blowing up Slimer eggs before they hatch. Naturally, this level made it more easier said than done. I've died many times at the beginning, but that was all on my obsession on destroying all the eggs. Anyone can easily let them hatch and deal with them more calmly. Also, it's the first time I've seen eggs actually moving. I don't know if that was the intention, but its a feature I didn't know was possible on vanilla Duke.

I have, however, to point out some issues I've had: if you emerge while under the second sewer line, you end up in the other sewer line (the one where you started the level). And, depending on where you emerge there (at one of the tail ends), you end up warping either to the upper freeway or in the middle "floor" of the central crevice. You're also unable to submerge if you head there from dry land.
Speaking of the middle crevice, I also had trouble battling Commanders over there as, once they're below the warping line (or whatever the technical term is), you can't hit them with non-hitscan weapons as the shots end up getting teleported downwards.

There's also the quirks involving the cars that Quacken already mentioned, but like its written on the readme, it's a feature and not a bug. I honestly found it really fun to fight enemies while riding the vehicles, specially when grabbing the tail of a car while trying to kill a Battlelord at the front. Granted, it made aiming at flying enemies tricky, but its nothing that would make combat too frustrating.

Bottom line: Technical issues aside, this level was very fun to play and very well built for a six-days map.

[ck3D]

Hey thank you all for your precious feedback, honestly makes me feel a bit better about how I spent my week already and so thereby making said week.

Dr.Panico, on 27 June 2022 - 08:55 AM, said:

I have, however, to point out some issues I've had: if you emerge while under the second sewer line, you end up in the other sewer line (the one where you started the level). And, depending on where you emerge there (at one of the tail ends), you end up warping either to the upper freeway or in the middle "floor" of the central crevice. You're also unable to submerge if you head there from dry land.

Thanks a lot in particular for pointing this out, I guess I'll be making an update after all, to address those teleporter issues. I had noticed weird behavior there before but thought I had eradicated it all in the end, well I guess I didn't. I've noticed one funny bug when trying to emerge out of that one long central slime pit all the while hugging the wall to try and fit back in one of the holes to the sewers, if you do it on the right frame the game won't be too sure which sector Duke is supposed to enter since so many lines overlap there and occasionally clip the player into the wrong one instead; I assume that's the same thing you're referring to, I didn't really mind in the moment because getting back to where you intended to go always is nothing but one step back into the pit, but thinking about it now I could probably fix this too by adjusting the sector heights since I'm going to update.

The Commanders flew past the warp zone without warping and thus entered the wrong 'side of the mirror' of the map? So curious as to why they didn't warp. I'll try lowering the respawn sprites a bit (maybe some are too close to the SE although I tried to be careful there). And the eggs moved? This is downright scary almost, where did that happen?

I'm also glad to read you realized one could (to an extent) 'grab' onto the cars and skitch around the highway with them, borrowing a ride. It's actually a pretty cool mechanic also when the enemies can and will also do it - wouldn't mind pushing it or seeing it pushed in particular in a different map.

Build vehicles (especially outdoors) very easily veer into jank territory yes, normally they aren't even supposed to work by killing the player and yet sparing the enemies just like that; I'm aware of all the side effects on gameplay Quacken described (rockets occasionally being deflected, the RPV's going rogue - but then for some reason they seem to go guard the second key pad as resignation which I thought was tolerable). This whole central mechanic basically is a premise that's not supposed, or likely to work, and yet the results seem to be mostly fun happenstance. The tanks may or may not merge with the traffic, the cars will knock more or less enemies into the central pit, clearing the upper layer of the level for a bit until you realize that means you're still going to run into them later. I've had Commanders and even Octas follow me back up the pit before too, seemingly not struggling against the whole set-up.

@Quacken in particular thanks for your review (appreciated your writing style as well), if you liked this then I'm certain you will be into Blast Radius since those levels are basically everything you appreciated here times twenty (with the rewarding of exploration at least), this really is a speed map where I only tried so much but that does mean I went for my usual go-to's. Quality and scale of the average Blast Radius level blows this out of the water but that's only reassuring and confirms I haven't been spending the last three years on virtual nonsense no one will enjoy. I genuinely appreciate your interest.

Ah and the .mid is Megadeth (and I'm not Megadeth), track name is 'Killing Road', glad you liked that match up.

Very happy you enjoyed it! Thanks for commenting.

[Dr.Panico]

ck3D, on 27 June 2022 - 09:31 AM, said:

And the eggs moved? This is downright scary almost, where did that happen?

On the lower freeway, in the sloped areas. Some eggs just lurched forward.

[Danukem]

Is jumping down into this seemingly bottomless pit between the roads the intended way to find the area with the yellow keycard? I fell in by accident lol.

[ck3D]

Attached below, version 1.1 of the map fixing every issue Dr. Panico kindly addressed, and then some more I noticed or little flaws that were bothering me. Those teleporters in the sewers really were screwed up, in a funny way though, I wonder if I can experiment with that on purpose. This should be the final version of the level, unless something else major comes up. Thank you for your patience!

Also attaching a bonus screenshot for the sake of it.

@Dr. Panico funny about the eggs, I never noticed. I figure it's all the subway action going on in the upper layer that may or may not generate funny business sometimes, I've observed the occasional odd enemy or player behavior leaning toward this suspicion but alas nothing as picturesque as you did there!

@Danukem: While I suspected most players would fall into the pit by accident or out of curiosity (there are security cams pointing to the underground segment later in case the player makes the jump), that's not the only mandatory means of access, the player can bypass the whole first keycard if so they wish by exploring the sewers completely, emerging from the central slime pit, or by stepping onto sprites and jumping through a one-way window near the start (but then they will be at a major disadvantage, maybe speedrunners could try it).

edit - hours later, I've tested the map some more and can confirm everything should be smooth sailing in this new version. I also experienced the weird enemy shifting this time around, unfortunately not with eggs though but some slimers that looked like they were strafing, was pretty great still. Doing most everything in my latest playthrough amounted to 450+ kills and 45 minutes.

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Attached File(s)

•  turnpike.rar (70.72K)
  Number of downloads: 222

[DNSkill]

I found this to be a very exciting map with a lot of replay value. FREEWAY has always been amongst my favorite maps of Duke Nukem 3D, and TURNPIKE takes that general setting and turns it up a whole lot of notches. I found myself using pipebombs a lot here, with the other weapons mostly reserved for the assault commander brigade found later in the area where the map gets its name. I found it to be quite challenging, but a tad more forgiving than your SALVAGE map. In speaking of which, this level feels as though it would fit with SALVAGE in an episode set, say around the length of E1.

Really good level design, and very good use of moving vehicles. It almost reminded me of frogger or something along those lines. I had to figure out their pattern to prevent myself from becoming roadkill. I also found the ending to be very tense, as you have all this stuff coming at you in both directions of the shuttle craft, that it is fairly intense trying to figure out the combination to get the engine started.

Great work, ck3d!

[ck3D]

DNSKILL420, on 28 June 2022 - 12:04 PM, said:

I found this to be a very exciting map with a lot of replay value. FREEWAY has always been amongst my favorite maps of Duke Nukem 3D, and TURNPIKE takes that general setting and turns it up a whole lot of notches. I found myself using pipebombs a lot here, with the other weapons mostly reserved for the assault commander brigade found later in the area where the map gets its name. I found it to be quite challenging, but a tad more forgiving than your SALVAGE map. In speaking of which, this level feels as though it would fit with SALVAGE in an episode set, say around the length of E1.

Really good level design, and very good use of moving vehicles. It almost reminded me of frogger or something along those lines. I had to figure out their pattern to prevent myself from becoming roadkill. I also found the ending to be very tense, as you have all this stuff coming at you in both directions of the shuttle craft, that it is fairly intense trying to figure out the combination to get the engine started.

Great work, ck3d!

Thank you for your feedback, I'm glad you liked the map so much! Frogger actually was a conscious inspiration here for the central gimmick. I think part of why this is easier than Salvage Title is the terrain is more open in general, Salvage Title was nooks and crannies whereas this is basically a bunch of superimposed intersecting rectangles (with some nooks and crannies). Honestly although I really want to keep this a speed map and move on, it's actually a bit tempting to spend more time refining it sometime, there already are a bunch of modifications I would ideally make (such as transforming that one-way window into a legit passageway, that was the plan originally but would take some basic redesign because of the ROR, or pushing the 'Terminator' segment which as of now merely exists for the sake of existing). The speed map episode idea is good and not new, it's something I've had on my mind for years cleaning up all my old user map releases (well the most salvageable of them) and reorganizing everything under some shape or form but right now I really want to focus on Blast Radius (saying that, but I also just started another speed map three hours ago, it's some healthy reprieve in between sessions on BR maps that can be humongous).

Combination at the end is merely there for the sake of it too, easy to figure out when not distracted and just specifically designed to encourage the player to kill the last monsters instead of jacking the skycar right away, they have to power it on first (and if they manage to with the monsters still present then more power to them), I suspect you might have spontaneously read the cheap intent though, it's not even trying to hide itself.

I'll post your video because it's a good teaser for the map and I also liked how you approached it laterally by visiting the most hardcore part first to stock up on gear then actually went back to respect the progression as intended when you could have just grabbed the key and jetpacked away, I specifically try and leave open routes in my maps these days even if that means huge possible skips and so it's satisfying whenever I witness it working out!

[Sanek]

CGS host this map now:
http://www.scent-88....ke/turnpike.php

Don't have time to play it myself, but I sure will!

[ck3D]

Sanek, on 02 July 2022 - 02:15 AM, said:

Don't have time to play it myself

Ha, I read that in Duke's voice. Thanks, Sanek (for assisting with the link to the update on the forums there as well), hope you enjoy!

[Sanek]

ck3D, on 02 July 2022 - 02:19 AM, said:

Ha, I read that in Duke's voice. Thanks, Sanek (for assisting with the link to the update on the forums there as well), hope you enjoy!

Yeah, I was about to notice it too, but thought it would be too obvious.



MSDN review:

https://msdn.duke4.net/hotturnpike.php

[ck3D]

Thanks, I read the review earlier already, that's exactly the feedback I expected from Mikko given the over-the-top fights and semi broken principle the map is built around, no more no less. He's appreciating it for what it is regardless of how experimental, that's cool. I'm pretty stoked he liked Salvage Title this much. And I think I already am well aware of everything he will like and dislike about Red Light Rumble, too!

[Merlijn]

Another fun map! Although I would also say Salvage title was a bit better, this was still a cool experimental map. I managed to find the underground tunnel very early on by jumping through the fake windows. But then I decided that I wanted to explore the street areas first, which was probably for the better.

The cars were an interesting element and led to some crazy situations. For example, one of the battlelords hitched a ride and managed to get the drop on me with a sudden drive-by attack.😋 The amount of eggs was a bit obnoxious, I have to agree with Mikko there. Also it was interesting how the underground section gave the player a lot of advantage (more cover, quite easy to take down targets from an elevated position) while the upper section did the exact opposite (almost no cover, and the killer cars limiting your movement). Was this an intentional contrast or did it just grew that way?

Also the layout was a bit confusing at times, of took me a while to find out what the yellow keycard did. But overall I had a fun time with this one 👍

[ck3D]

Thanks Mrline, really cool that you managed to get some fun out of what really is a pretty chaotic experience, in many ways I guess this map could qualify as a nod to early user mapping just as much as it does as a nod to Freeway. Having made this one and Red Light Rumble back to back and playing both a lot lately for testing purposes I think the latter is a way more 'stable', classic and fun level with a more interesting atmosphere to immerse in, I suspect (but may be wrong!) you might enjoy that one a bit more, especially if you like Pig Cops. Reality is, Freeway remake the way is ideally see it would take more than a speed map project to do justice to on a due level (no pun intended), but there just is no way I would tackle a serious single map right now and so then this level wouldn't have existed at all. I don't really believe in abstractions such as the ideal or perfect map, I think people just want to play stuff. Personally I've already completely moved on from Turnpike mentally speaking (RLR is growing on me though), but I'm not trying to manipulate a portfolio here and just occasionally provide fellow Duke 3D fans with new playable terrain which is what this whole mapping thing comes down to, least we forget.

Question actually is interesting because while I do normally plan this kind of stuff for more serious maps, here everything happened completely spontaneously, I wanted intersecting ROR layers and that was it (ironically, that's also a pet peeve of mine with Turnpike the way it is now, I wish I had had the time and focus to spend on working out a better connection between the roads than that one-way window; right now looks like some one-way exit off the freeway/dead-end which is fine, but a door and merging lanes to really highlight the whole layout concept and the 'underground' part really being underneath the overpass, I would have liked better). I think I did the top part with the cars first and then the bottom part, or maybe I was working on both simultaneously, though so one definitely called for the other since I'm always trying to avoid excessive repetition (in both gameplay and structural patterns; some repetition I think can actually work really well for coherence in level design and thus actually should happen, but only when called for and desired). Enemy type probably had to do with it too, pretty early on I knew the bottom part was bound to be crammed with Tanks, Battlelords and Octabrains whereas the overpass was mostly destined to have Pigs and Enforcers and so, different combat strategies. One mechanic in this map I like is that central water pit on the lower level to be frank, I think there's untapped potential between alternating in between two layers of a map like this (above/under water) for combat strategies and I wouldn't mind pushing that mechanic later, or seeing others push it. Imagine two simultaneous boss fights at the same time, one in each layer (with the appropriate fair cover) and the player would have to constantly switch back and forth between both ongoing scenarii and their evolution, always forced to keep track of both events, could be really cool.

[ck3D]

Radar getting 100% secrets (also some cool gameplay moments, and one funny bug with that one slimer that desperately tries so hard to attach to the player's face on that moving train), pretty cool way to traverse the map as well (closer to 'intended'), also made me spot a forgotten texture, oops:

[quakis]

Recently played this on CGS, it's likely I'm playing an older version though. Tried out recording, so enjoy 50mins of erratic gameplay, dumb deaths, silly edits and being deflated. Just worth mentioning, the first time I load a save was some days after dying once. Gonna give this another whirl down the road since I'm not satisfied on the note I ended on.

[ck3D]

Thank you for the video! I'm halfway through watching and while it does looks like you're playing a pre-update version, there's quite a bit about even the latest available one that irks me a little and I want to go back and fix for Dada Nukem (a speed map compilation project thing I have in mind) if/when I can manage: the RPV's, the layout in a few places, some cosmetics and, effect-wise, mostly things regarding the subway movement and behavior. Emerging out of the slime pit onto bricks/the wrong sector like I just saw it happened to you (23:45) is new to me though (and looks crazy), I know the version you're playing had some misplaced teleporters around that part which should be fixed in the latest available update and so that must have been it, but here it also looks like clipping a wall/line whilst emerging straight up offset Duke in a way that gets me and might justify some extra investigating.