[Nacho]

I just wanted to let anyone who is interested know I went and curated a playlist of my playthrough of Blast Radius. I included a mini retrospective I typed out after beating it in the playlist description and added timestamps for all the levels. This includes my original run with the wrong settings, as well as my rebooted playthrough. I used a thumbnail switch (as well as mentioning it in the description and video title) to easily indicate which run you are watching. Sadly this means I lost my fun thumbnails... but don't worry! I still have some additional things I might do with this mod, so I'm hoping to save them for that (no promises yet as to when or if yet):

Blast Radius Playlist

[Aleks]

I suppose I can say I've reached the half mark of Blast Radius after having finished Incapharnaum, which alone took longer than the 3 levels preceding it together (and perhaps also if they were combined with the 2 next levels).

Incapharnaum
This one is a game of its own really. Looking at the article about the level and seeing Ninety-Six's end-level stats screen, it kinda reassured me that it's not me who sucks so much, but it's just the level beign so damn big, as I had a very similar time in 100%'ing it (amassing a bunch of more kills, with 1592 total - probably in part due to the slimers and in part due to having bumped into a number of stray troopers, commanders and new beasts while looking for the last secrets). The name of the level is funny two, I've just read what it originally stems from (or rather what the Capharnaum part actually meant, because the Inca- prefix was quite clear), but it always drew my mind more towards "incapability", which is pretty much how the player can feel in there. As I said during the beta, I love the adventurous, wild feel of this level, which is a combination of its theme and openness/size, with a particularly fitting soundtrack which might be my favourite in the whole episode, as it conveys the exact same "adventurous" feeling while being progressive and varied enough for multiple loops. The exploration and uncovering new areas feels genuinely cool, same with the secret places which will sometimes trigger a more or less dangerous events. There are a few things which I don't like about this map, but it's easier and faster to list them rather than listing stuff that I like. Definitely my least favourite part is the action on the rooftops while going for the red keycard - it literally either makes you a sitting Duke (pun intended) while being bamboozled from every side or forces you to get down to get cover, which kinda defies its whole purpose. The openness and size of the map isn't always a good thing too when it comes to combat, as sometimes enemies will be so far that you won't be even able to spot them when they start shooting you, get so high up that it's impossible to get the correct angle to aim at them or simply will stray off into the sunset because of losing their sense of purpose. The groups of flying troopers work while conquering the mountain top, but not in every other situation. I'm also not a big fan of the underwater tunnels and the pattern of minibattlelords spawning on the cliffs gets mundane after a while, since it's just the same "peek from behind a corner, fire 6 RPG rockets/about 55 freezer projectiles, hide, wait for few dozen seconds and watch them die" routine. Moving around the slopes is how it is in Build, so that spawn of two mini overlords and mini cycloid that instantly fall into a pit is a bit pointless to fight. I don't really care for the underwater area, especially the pal 6 part looks a bit jarring and out of place. And the bushes definitely get in the way more than they should. Now on the other hand, there are some ridiculously fun and crazy fights. Sentry drones work surprisingly well, especially combined with other monsters - the fight that's triggered at one of the last secret places (the one that also reveals the exit) was great. I also really liked clearing both of the large forests around the purple lava - one that leads to Macchu Picchu and also the one on the other side that I don't think has any particular purpose. Stadium fight is pretty cool too, but my favourite fights in the city take place on the railway tracks - the first one triggered at the shrinker location and the other one, which I almost missed, triggered at the RPG ammo cache in the demolished building. I like the parallel to The Abyss, both design- and progression-wise it's spot on. The broken bridges and how nicely all the rainforest/rivers fit together are design highlights IMO, also the architecture of the football club building near the stadium is pretty cool (again, too bad there are no secret places on the rooftop). The general composition, or the "conceptual grandness" of the level, is super impressive. And let's be honest, the exploration is just a lot of fun, otherwise I wouldn't spend (again!) 5 hours in it. This time was a bit more meticulous with the secrets right from the start, so I got "naturally" to 70 before having to fly around the map to find the remaining two - which turned out to be quite easy to find and reach as well. The item locations are very functional, in particular I like what you did with the jetpacks distribution on the cliffs, that seemed to appear right when I needed one. Brilliant level, definitely one of my top 3 of Blast Radius, but not "perfect".

Rating: 97/100

[ck3D]

Thanks for all the enthusiasm and feedback. Only just noticed Nacho went as far as splitting each video with timestamps for the levels, that's quite the dedication and I'm glad I started using chat on the re-run so now there is 'dev commentary' and general Build banter that is staying with those vids which may be precious or interesting for newcomers trying to grasp the engine too. Looking forward to how your channel will pick up and work in terms of transmission,

@Aleks yeah the pit with the three minibosses is essentially a joke, that is where the easiest jetpack to find around the map is (and the first one that is on the way without ever having to backtrack a little), so if anyone's ever trying to cheese though the map like that well they'll also have to eat the hole. But in reality getting the jetpack that's closer to the start (near the secret Freezer) involves a bit of sideways exploration but probably is faster when speedrunning, since then you can use it to skip more of the cliffs you'd otherwise platform across. I wouldn't know, never tried going that route when speedrunning myself because well, I know what's waiting in the hole. The one island with the pack of Overlords and the giant Battlelord Sentry/Newbeast/Octa fight mostly is the biggest ammo cache in the map, it's got rockets for the RPG and Devastator for days; the player shouldn't need it since the rest of the level already provides with that aplenty so it mostly exists to be conquered if one's played their cards wrong and ends up in a tight situation. It's also there to really punish trying to cross the map that way since that is completely possible with the right items but then skips the entire city, a choice I wanted to leave open but also bring its share of action. Essentially it's some extra fat.

Zaps, zots and What Is Love in Radar's latest space karaoke performance (the MIDI sounds great again, I'm stoked):

[Aleks]

High High High

A much needed "breather" kind of level after the Peru map, with confined spaces and linear gameplay. It's a plane map though, which never worked really well in Build due to the crampedness of the planes even in real life. Here the plane is much larger, but still the seats can get in the way at times. I'm also not a big fan of the darkness and over-palettization of the deck part of this map, which makes it difficult to see enemies, but also to really see the details of the map, which are nice. Not to mention the fact that some textures just look ugly with pal 1 or 2. The green pal over some elements seem to work best, as it's not so overwhelming and usually used with more appropriate textures. The map really picks up at the cargo hold, which hosts the most interesting fights, coolest design and even some interesting platforming before going out of the plane for a wild jetpack trip around the wings. The fights are fun again in this part, despite the dickish falling battlelords moment (and I'd also get rid of the sentry drones which usually seem to just wander aimlessly out of the player space if you don't kill them fast enough. The new turret variants are interesting, I'm not a big fan of the projectile enforcers though in close quarters as they will just drain a lot of your hitpoints without much notice to the player if you let them start shooting. Avionics is the only part where the darkness works well, as it seems meant to be fought with NVG on against the overlords. Early shrinker and lots of ammo make the bosses a lot easier though, with scorpion tanks being the toughest enemies really (especially if you don't notice them soon enough and get the regular tanks/battlelord to spawn before you kill them). I like the lighting/shading in this level. The layout is impressive as well, although considering you've recreated the plane and its surroundings twice for interior/exterior & cargo and that the only link between them is the teleporting elevator, I'm not really sure why they are in the same physical space, would have been a lot easier to just have them separated both for the workflow, potential SOS clipping and automap readability! The soundtrack is a lot calmer and kind of "majestic", which works OK with an incontinental plane trip, but isn't that memorable. Found all secrets on the go this time (helps that there are only 4), I'm pretty sure I've never found them all in the beta stage though, particularly it was probably the first time I got into the secret medical bay.

Rating: 92/100

[ck3D]

Aleks, on 21 September 2023 - 01:37 AM, said:

The layout is impressive as well, although considering you've recreated the plane and its surroundings twice for interior/exterior & cargo and that the only link between them is the teleporting elevator, I'm not really sure why they are in the same physical space, would have been a lot easier to just have them separated both for the workflow, potential SOS clipping and automap readability!

Thanks for the review again; I like that you pointed this out. Workflow wasn't an issue since I built everything around the map in the correct order and the second plane I just moved over the first plane at the very last minute. BR never uses modern TROR but instead relies on classic Build SOS to treat the engine as actual 3D space as close as it can get and that's also by physically overlapping the dimensions regardless of whether or not there is a silent teleporter method, every type of coordinate matters and thus made sense to respect. Automap readibility actually is part of the point, there only is one plane the player should feel aboard and thus it's OK/normal if they should have difficulty figuring out which exact floor. Level 9 Nakano Sunplaza building probably is the best example or representation in the entire episode, it's several floors stacked (sometimes with external 3D spritework following the SOS layouts to establish part of the space being blocked in the respective 'host' sectors) but all the floors also are connected on the Z axis somewhere via vents in the floors and ceilings, so one can navigate it like a cube of cubes, and the vents are all aligned with one another. The belltower in Croatia is another example with IIRC 6 floors à la Spaceport, but to a degree every level features comparable logic and similar tricks. Clipping shouldn't happen since the Z heights (most of the time) also are respected from floor to floor, the only true fuck up in this regard is the first level that was made for BR which is NYC with the underground subway that's technically running above ground in part of the city, hence the possible bugs there, and in the very first level but that's addressed with the silent teleporters that warp you back to the correct layer as soon as you possibly clip.

The only moment the automaps become less 'realistic' and more abstract again is around the end game when Duke starts dissociating at the end of Silent Scream, and then in Closure no layer of the Monopoly board overlaps as this level reaffirms in-universe it's a game one has been playing all along and so everyday dimensional logic gets thrown out of the window as the fourth wall dissolves.

[ck3D]

I had been looking forward to this one too and wasn't disappointed, Radar's trial of fire through Zarathustra:



Map was tackled flawlessly progression-wise I was quite impressed, was wondering how much the player had figured out on their own (and in how long) and/or the walkthrough helped. Action is intense as soon as the first second, loved how the Earth museum plaza fight was tackled too (basically reverse order, balancing on top of that one middle ledge, and pistol vs. Permafried Overlord!). Even the minute or so spent going down the giant pump to get the yellow key looked interesting. Map kind of plays like a movie when the player knows what they're doing and I appreciated the going-through-every-platform-despite-the-jetpack cinematic approach.

Was happy to read such appreciation for the level in the description, too. I couldn't fault anyone for not vibing with it, it's peak Blast Radius designed as the ultimate test and so quite a crazy piece. There's so much one can cram into a single map, isn't there.

[Aleks]

ck3D, on 21 September 2023 - 02:07 AM, said:

Thanks for the review again; I like that you pointed this out. Workflow wasn't an issue since I built everything around the map in the correct order and the second plane I just moved over the first plane at the very last minute. BR never uses modern TROR but instead relies on classic Build SOS to treat the engine as actual 3D space as close as it can get and that's also by physically overlapping the dimensions regardless of whether or not there is a silent teleporter method, every type of coordinate matters and thus made sense to respect. Automap readibility actually is part of the point, there only is one plane the player should feel aboard and thus it's OK/normal if they should have difficulty figuring out which exact floor. Level 9 Nakano Sunplaza building probably is the best example or representation in the entire episode, it's several floors stacked (sometimes with external 3D spritework following the SOS layouts to establish part of the space being blocked in the respective 'host' sectors) but all the floors also are connected on the Z axis somewhere via vents in the floors and ceilings, so one can navigate it like a cube of cubes, and the vents are all aligned with one another. The belltower in Croatia is another example with IIRC 6 floors à la Spaceport, but to a degree every level features comparable logic and similar tricks. Clipping shouldn't happen since the Z heights (most of the time) also are respected from floor to floor, the only true fuck up in this regard is the first level that was made for BR which is NYC with the underground subway that's technically running above ground in part of the city, hence the possible bugs there, and in the very first level but that's addressed with the silent teleporters that warp you back to the correct layer as soon as you possibly clip.

Yeah I know what you did there, still moving a large part of the level can be a chore because of e.g. sprites that are partially "inside" the ceilings/floors moving up or down and needing to be re-aligned, etc.


Koj Stil Borac

I've said it multiple times already, but I'll say it again - this is my single favourite map from Blast Radius and maybe even my favourite map from MRCK. Pretty much everything clicks here - the monsters are used optimally to their strengths, with placement that is just genuinely fun to fight and just sufficiently challenging without becoming frustrating/tedious/dickish. A good decision was to take all of the player's weapons and items, forcing a bit intensive start that makes you focus more about the strategies and order in which you do things, but also making all the extra/optional exploration, secret hunting and side quests a lot more rewarding, with the ensuing fights potentially triggered making a lot more sense in general. The design of this map is top notch too, the city isn't overwhelmingly large, so there's more than enough resources left for details, which are well spent! There are finally some more interiors to visit, even if they're mostly optional places just to gear-up, which in this case often means the only - or most available - means to get a hold of new guns. They're all cute little shops full of impressive texture picks and creative use of sprites. I also really like the billboard with commander which then turns into an actual commander emerging from it. The colosseum is amazing too, considering it's multi-layered design and lots of weird angles - and it triggers a massive, yet oddly satisfying fight as well. Then there's the extra-layer of the map, feeling a bit like the "Upside Down" from Stranger Things, with the alien colosseum-like structure - I haven't noticed this before, but the slopes around the windows are a great addition, making the whole structure look like it's kind of woven from the alien tentacles-slime-goo thing. Colour coding around this area makes it easier to navigate around than one would expect, with 3 (?) different entrances and lots of jetpacks for easier traversal. I'm not a big fan of the blocked "roots" covering most of the area around the alien colosseum, as they make shooting octabrains/slimers from distance a bit of a hassle, but still can see their function at just that, making the combat here a bit less trivial. When looking for the keycard inside, I had a funny situation where we both shrank each other with a commander, except that only I had steroids to grow back... The new enemy variants, mostly the Istrian Pig Cops, mortar/shrinker commanders and permafrost minibosses used more often, fit very well with the environment they're set in. Even the Davy and Linda enforcers work a lot better than in the plane map too, octabrains are a bit tougher before you get the devastator and the distances at which the hordes of flying troopers spawn are much more reasonable than in the previous maps, making the fights more about skill than a gamble. Then there's the church, which looks magnificient from the inside and even getting there is a lot of wild adventurous fun. The only nitpick would be that some of the last batch of bosses going idle after spawning, but then even that can end up in some interesting hunts around the town/unexpected random encounters. Had a bit of a hectic time looking for 2 last secrets, but did nail them all in the end. The music resonates wonderfully with the map's badass and dynamic combat/attitude, particularly due to how strong the guitar riffs sound - reminding me a bit of the more "relentless" Duke 2 soundtracks.

Rating: 99/100

[Ninety-Six]

Soundtrack is actually pretty great all-around. It introduced me to some new stuff I liked, Vivre Ou Survivre being my favorite (I'm not 100% sure if I spelled that right; I don't speak French and the manual is sadly not the easiest to read because of how the text sometimes blends in with the background lines).

[ck3D]

Ninety-Six, on 22 September 2023 - 06:46 PM, said:

Soundtrack is actually pretty great all-around. It introduced me to some new stuff I liked, Vivre Ou Survivre being my favorite (I'm not 100% sure if I spelled that right; I don't speak French and the manual is sadly not the easiest to read because of how the text sometimes blends in with the background lines).

You spelled it right and I'm very happy to read this, I was hoping people would find at least a song or two that they would learn to like and then find the original of. Soundtrack actually was a bit of work searching for MIDIs that weren't just tracks I personally like but also had some type of connection with each locale Duke explores. The manual is cumbersome on purpose to mimic the style of some barely readable ones of the 90's (whenever I find the time I'd still like to revisit some aspects of it though), but all the info and then some more is on ModDB, each Level Lore page has a Soundtrack subsection and I still have this playlist of all the original music on YouTube. For a lot of the music I had to leave my own comfort zone and spend nights listening to more or less obscure renditions of just about anything I could find until I'd find a track with an acceptable connection that also worked with the mood I wanted for each level, at the end of the day I think my favorite pairing I found (in atmosphere and thematics) was Acid Rain and the Norilsk level which actually resulted in some people conversing about the track on a Russian forum a while back, they were posting the live version which may have close to 7 million views on YouTube but does kick ass, got me into LTE for a bit:



And then from Postmortem onwards and except for Closure it's all Slayer MIDI's, a trend that continues into Zero Zone. It's very possible that if I do end up making that one a 30 map series they might all have a different Slayer MIDI each.

@Aleks thanks for the review again, wow I had forgotten you liked the Croatia level so much. Happy to read it and be reminded!

[Radar]

ck3D, on 18 September 2023 - 09:06 AM, said:

I've seen people get way worse which takes me back to the interrogation of why they seem to differ so much from person to person and set-up to set-up in the same settings.

This probably goes without saying, but I'm going to suggest the likely culprit is different EDuke32 versions. When it comes to rendering glitches, I would assume the newer the build, the fewer glitches will appear.

ck3D, on 18 September 2023 - 09:06 AM, said:

Where did the Moonlight Sonata go!

It is there, but the MIDI file is very quiet so it played back almost inaudibly. Which is interesting because I thought I turned up the music a little too loud throughout this episode, but I guess certainly not for that level.

ck3D, on 22 September 2023 - 09:04 AM, said:

Map was tackled flawlessly progression-wise I was quite impressed, was wondering how much the player had figured out on their own (and in how long) and/or the walkthrough helped.

I didn't read the walkthrough, perhaps I should have for a few of these levels. I did a bit of planning in Mapster to figure out the best route forward without any needless backtracking. Glad you appreciated it.

ck3D, on 22 September 2023 - 09:04 AM, said:

Map kind of plays like a movie when the player knows what they're doing and I appreciated the going-through-every-platform-despite-the-jetpack cinematic approach.

It was my intention to treat all maps as if I had no jetpack. The jetpack simply serves as a crutch in case I fall off a platform or need to quickly turn it on for a sec to prevent fall damage.

ck3D, on 23 September 2023 - 01:55 AM, said:

And then from Postmortem onwards and except for Closure it's all Slayer MIDI's, a trend that continues into Zero Zone. It's very possible that if I do end up making that one a 30 map series they might all have a different Slayer MIDI each.

If you're interested in opinions on this then I'll just chime in and mention that I personally do not prefer the Slayer MIDIs. Metal is not really my favorite genre and though Duke seems like a "heavy metal" guy, the style of music noticeably absent from Duke3D. As background music, it is a bit intrusive and head banging. idk, just my opinion.

[Ninety-Six]

Radar, on 23 September 2023 - 07:43 PM, said:

It was my intention to treat all maps as if I had no jetpack. The jetpack simply serves as a crutch in case I fall off a platform or need to quickly turn it on for a sec to prevent fall damage.

That's generally how I play as well, though I do frequently use it for secret hunting as an additional circumstance.

[Aleks]

Radar, on 23 September 2023 - 07:43 PM, said:

It was my intention to treat all maps as if I had no jetpack. The jetpack simply serves as a crutch in case I fall off a platform or need to quickly turn it on for a sec to prevent fall damage.

Ninety-Six, on 23 September 2023 - 08:42 PM, said:

That's generally how I play as well, though I do frequently use it for secret hunting as an additional circumstance.

Same here, another use for me is some fights (particularly with tougher enemies) that are better/funnier tackled from the air, giving you another dimension to dodge their projectiles and rain the death on them from above. To be honest, using skips in 9 out of 10 cases leads to additional confusion really, as you're not sure which way to go anymore. I remember spending "hours" as a kid exploring the red rocks in The Abyss without triggering their collapse at first, as I remembered there's a way to go somewhere there, but obviously couldn't find it. Maps in Blast Radius can be particularly prone to this, especially if playing blindly and not knowing where to go. Anyway...

Lights, Camera, Revolution
At first I'd like to point out a weird bug I've ran into at the very end of the map here. Using the regular nukebutton just takes me back into the title screen (instead of the Norilsk level), using the secret nukebutton does work to travel to Duke du Quatrain, but then this level won't take me to Norilsk map either, but back to the title screen. If I try replaying the map from previous save and godmode/rush to the exit, it works fine, similar with the secret level - so no idea what's causing it, DNDEBUG doesn't show anything weird either within the map, so I guess it might just be some one-time weirdness triggered by something peculiar. Will try replaying the level and see what happens.

Now back to the map itself - it was probably one of the levels I've had most comments on during the beta-stage, but I'm glad to see how they were addressed, since I've had a lot better time playing the map this time around! Contrary to the previous levels, this one is based almost entirely on a central building, in the vein of more classic DN3D levels - and it works, considering how many twists are done. The catacombs are great fun (especially after removing the red cocktabrain from the cave right after the tomb in the catacombs) to explore, once again in a more classic fashion of Duke maps and where palettes actually work really well. I still did forget where the blue keycard was and of course went down to the pharmacy after checking the viewscreen, only to remember it was this lone window (BTW, I've only noticed there's a reference to some show there when reading the lore - the layout of this room makes it quite difficult to spot anything going on there, besides the music suddenly starting to play). The asshole troopers make their first appearance here with their lethal projectiles, but knowing I should prioritize them made it a bit easier, also I appreciate getting the red tint after being hit by these! Clearing the streets more meticulously almost ended with no deaths, but of course the last lone Cycoid Emperor just had to one hit me After reading the lore article, I've finally found where was the giant dick "relief" that Duke sculpts in the museum, I remembered you telling me about this long time ago, but somehow always missed it. The long-distance fights here work very well, especially at the rooftop after grabbing the yellow key, because of the proper distance between the monsters and the player and contrasting sky/surroundings. I like the pharmacy here much better than the huge one in LA map, the various shops around the town are neat too, while the museum itself has some brilliant architecture, all the while allowing for some more abstract designs when it comes to the exhibitions and being very dynamic with all the exploding walls/monsters coming in from various directions (not to mention the grand finale). I didn't have problems unlocking the bathrooms, which I remembered being not that clear during the beta stage either I think. When it comes to the easter eggs, I have to admit I've mostly understood the poops scattered all around the streets, although the BDSM porn room was quite creative as well. Music was quite contrasting to the level action, I remembered you telling me about using the Gainsbourg song and only realised it's a different one in the level lore article. It's quite surprising after the previous soundtracks, but a nice piece nevertheless and somehow works here.

Rating: 93/100

[ck3D]

Radar, on 23 September 2023 - 07:43 PM, said:

This probably goes without saying, but I'm going to suggest the likely culprit is different EDuke32 versions. When it comes to rendering glitches, I would assume the newer the build, the fewer glitches will appear.

Yeah that would make sense and is generally what I've observed, newer EDukes running the episode better and better as a whole (so glad we've come a long way since the original release needing to include an older build, I'm so thankful TerminX raised maxspritesonscreen again), just those few glitches in particular get me because I keep observing inconsistent results; people with more recent builds than mine get issues I don't, or with reportedly comparable builds get different behaviors. I know that's intrinsically tied to some of the map design itself that conflicts with this or that part of the rendering code(s) on some level but since I've fixed most (not all) of the issues that I do get and still observe some discrepancies in other people's playthroughs, I'm left in the dark a little from that point on in regards to the exact root problem, but that's pure Build nerdery.

Again your footage also has been reassuring me quite a bit re: how the maps look in Polymost these days; just the other day I even changed the wording on the ModDB page to 'software renderer only' to just 'recommended'. Even if it turns out the Polymost-induced issues never were directly tied to the rendering glitches, the episode used to look a lot more broken in it, but these days it's stylistically almost interchangeable with classic minus some precise little instances that might look goofy but not downright ruin anything. Two pleasant surprises have been differing sky heights do not seem to interfere with the rendering of certain enemies and props anymore now, and way less of the texturing looks out of alignment and thus place.

MIDI being very quiet thing indeed I realized later after posting and then couldn't come back to edit. It's one of my most cherished soundtrack picks in the episode. Only later did I realize Shadowman also had used it.

Radar, on 23 September 2023 - 07:43 PM, said:

If you're interested in opinions on this then I'll just chime in and mention that I personally do not prefer the Slayer MIDIs. Metal is not really my favorite genre and though Duke seems like a "heavy metal" guy, the style of music noticeably absent from Duke3D. As background music, it is a bit intrusive and head banging. idk, just my opinion.

I hear you, a lot of it is tied to the idea that before being called 'Duke Nukem' for a moment the franchise was going to be called 'Heavy Metal' and at this point of the adventure Duke is this deep in the zone, but in practice just like everything it only works when it should. There are a few older maps of mine I'm thinking of modifying and then integrating into Zero Zone, but I also would like to keep the music they originally came with which wasn't Slayer nor metal, so conceptually there for now I'm stuck; that'll teach me.

@Aleks thanks for the review again. Yeah that Easter egg in particular is reserved strictly for the French I reckon, but it's not a bad movie.

General jetpack talk is super interesting and as expected keeps justifying the lore in a cool way, maybe we can talk about it sometime when someone asks and I'm not using a keyboard that is borderline too broken for long posts.

[ck3D]

Radar wins the game (warning: flashing lights and images):



Using the steroids to hit all three underwater buttons in one go all the while ignoring the enemy presence in the area is a cool strat I had never thought of, also instantly going for all the community chest spaces and stocking up on explosives to then retrieve the Shrinker to then confront the N.U.K.U.M. in the secret office was really neat, I usually don't go at things in this particular order (I take my time around the board a bit more). Going to the secret place first thing into the level plays funny by the way because then it's purely pipebombs and tripmines against the N.U.K.U.M. in a rather confined but wide enough space with lots of weird angles, that isn't particularly difficult but just fresh enough to be interesting for a minute as a one-off challenge. Shooting the paw switch from distance also is smart for cheesing the 'just visiting' ascension a bit. Boss gauntlet was nice too, sometimes I like spawning all three in at the same time and then the level becomes a mess but may be easier because of the friendly fire they will cause to one another, and you can also lead the pack in the way of the Cycloid Archangel's attacks which can lead to some spectacle.

Thanks again for all the devotion to the episode, this whole month has been a blast.

[Seb Luca]

What a hardcore level The spaceship is awesome !
The final collapse is worthy of a Roland Emmerich film

[Radar]

ck3D, on 27 September 2023 - 03:10 AM, said:

Thanks again for all the devotion to the episode, this whole month has been a blast.

It was my pleasure. Truly a very well made episode. I have already finished my videos for October which will consist of most of your previous maps. Just going off memory, I expected them to be similar to Blast Radius except without the deconstructive and meta elements, but I have to say even architecturally, Blast Radius surpasses your previous works. It is by far the best set of maps you've made, along with Poison Heart which is also one of your best maps.

[Merlijn]

ck3D, on 27 September 2023 - 03:10 AM, said:

Radar wins the game (warning: flashing lights and images):



Using the steroids to hit all three underwater buttons in one go all the while ignoring the enemy presence in the area is a cool strat I had never thought of, also instantly going for all the community chest spaces and stocking up on explosives to then retrieve the Shrinker to then confront the N.U.K.U.M. in the secret office was really neat, I usually don't go at things in this particular order (I take my time around the board a bit more). Going to the secret place first thing into the level plays funny by the way because then it's purely pipebombs and tripmines against the N.U.K.U.M. in a rather confined but wide enough space with lots of weird angles, that isn't particularly difficult but just fresh enough to be interesting for a minute as a one-off challenge. Shooting the paw switch from distance also is smart for cheesing the 'just visiting' ascension a bit. Boss gauntlet was nice too, sometimes I like spawning all three in at the same time and then the level becomes a mess but may be easier because of the friendly fire they will cause to one another, and you can also lead the pack in the way of the Cycloid Archangel's attacks which can lead to some spectacle.

Thanks again for all the devotion to the episode, this whole month has been a blast.

I really need to get back into this episode and finish my playthrough. Hopefully I'll have more time soon.
But just wanted to say that this is such a creative idea for a boss map. I didn't finish it during the beta testing but seeing the giant monopoly board and the Archangel just blew my mind haha. Very unique and well put together!

[Aleks]

After a longer break, I'm back at it.

Duke Du Quatrain
This level would probably work better if forcing a weaponless (and, in particular, an itemless) start, as the coolest part about it is the "Metroidvania" styled progression. Nevertheless, despite keeping my items, I still used the "intended" progression based around jumping between the islands. I liked the comparisons between this map and your older levels based around Blois in the article (also, thanks for reminding me about the Château de Blois from Happy Hangover, which is still one of my favourite MRCK buildings to this day). Design-wise, the 1st, 3rd and last island shine the most. The 2nd one is plagued a bit with the massive sprite floor, which in itself is quite impressive, but causes weird behaviours of sentry drones and the usual clipping in classic renderer. This is also quite annoying on some buildings on the final island. Due to the size of the map, looking in the wrong directions on the 3rd and final islands caused some lags, but nothing that would affect gameplay. The 3rd island is probably my favourite in terms of design really, it's too bad that we only spend very short time there. The gameplay is a mixed bag - there are some interesting encounters, but also a lot of super-long distance fights almost feel broken due to the sheer size of the map - you basically fire your load in a direction of a distant boss before his attacks can even reach you, then can just ignore him and go into cover. The first Cycoid Emperor that spawns around the tower/sloped roof on the first island when reaching the top of the tower is probably the most jarring example, as he just seemed to keep blowing balls at his feet. Sunburnt battlelords are a bit better because of hitscan attacks, I guess regular ones would also work well. The last island is most crowded and has most intense fights, which I liked a lot. The 12 buttons you have to hit can be a bit confusing, even the viewscreens don't seem to show all of these. I like how the destruction is represented in this map, although would probably reduce the pointiness of some of the broken ledges that contain items, as having to carefully approach these at all times slows down the pace of the map in general. There's also a lot more ammo (RPG rockets in particular) than required, I probably left about 40 stacks and still mostly used the RPG throughout the level even on lesser enemies like pig cops. I'm not a huge fan of the slimer "hedge cabinets" too, as they're pretty much just tedious to clear. It's a miracle no monsters got lost on the lava (I think), even with some stray commanders I spotted at the last moment. Managed to find all the secrets quite effortlessly, although I was a bit afraid knowing it can be difficult if having to go back to one of the islands. The music fits the level and I like it's upbeat tempo and kind of sense of urgency.

The bug that prevented from reaching the Norilsk level naturally from the nukebutton still persisted, so I was forced to pistol-start that level. Luckily, there's more than enough weapons laying around anyway.

Rating: 94/100

[Aleks]

Continuing on - this time with two levels, so this is going to be a very long post...

Norilsk No-Reward
Had to pistol-start this level due to the reason mentioned in the previous post, but it wasn't so bad. Despite the level pitting you against two Cycoids (not sure if Aymeric is aware of it, BTW, but "cyc" means literally "tit" in Polish, with "cycek" as "titty" being the more common form), it doesn't take that much time to resupply and be ready for action. I did use some lining of these two to incite the infighting in order to conserve the ammo, which resulted in one of them dying to his colleague's rockets. Towards the end, however, the ammo (rockets and freezer in particular) is just laying around everywhere, giving a convenient possibility of just sniping the enemies from a great distance. Nevertheless, the level still takes a while to "100%", with almost 700 enemies dead at the end (took me around 140 minutes in total!). I've also noticed a "bug" (?), as picking up the RPG ammo from a dead green pig cop awarded me the gun itself as well, which I haven't picked up before - should be something easy to fix in the CON, but please check first if it really is so, since maybe I just wasn't paying attention. As for the level itself - it's kind of bordering on the naive, over-scaled, blocky and colorful ways of 1996 user maps, being deliberately somehow primitivistic, yet still boasting some very nice and original architecture, which re-imagines the town very well in the Build enginer. I particularly like the plaza and colorful buildings (red and blue especially) around the first part of the level. Despite the clear color-coding, the progression might not be as clear, especially in the later part of the map - I completely ignored the yellow keycard at first and went on to the finish line without ever needing it, then only looked for it for the sake of completeness (it also spawned a few more monsters). The gameplay is once again a mixed bag - the large bosses make their debut here and can be quite tricky, in particular the first battlelord which is fought in quite an open area (the other one, at the very end of the level, is a bit broken - it falls down a hole from where he can't reach you, but exposes his head right for your shots). There are some quite interesting fights, but often the distances are so large that you can just snipe everything before it gets a chance of even hitting you. I like the music in this one a lot - it's very fast and aggressive, so perfectly fits this level with its dynamic pacing. I agree with Aymeric that Norilsk alone could probably use a whole episode of its own and while this map might not really do it justice, I still enjoy its wildeness and intimidating size.

Rating: 94/100

Nakano Nightmare
Now this one's a gem! Definitely in my top 3 favorite levels from Blast Radius. Pretty much everything works here as planned - it's a huge and vibrant city that feels very much alive, perfectly catching the neon-lit spirit of Tokyo and delivering both with great outside and inside (which was much needed after two previous completely open maps) design and challenging, fun combat. It's about 90-100 minutes long as well, but it's a time well-spent. There are plenty of locations with an ideal balanced between open and constrained progression (even if the level can be completed in a matter of minutes if you have a jetpack), with more details than the previous two maps and a lot more "wow" effect. There are some nerdy engine/layout fireworks as well to contemplate, such as the SOS-heavy interior of the Nakano Sun Plaza. The jokes and references are brilliant, I love the whole arcade building or all the small easter eggs laying around every corner, which are quite accessible to someone not that familiar with the Japanese culture or its capital either. Clearing the streets at the beginning feels like an adventure of its own, as you go from being swarmed by hordes of enemies and fighting sole (or just pairs) of large bosses, particularly overlords. There's a barely rewarding park where I suffered my first and only death since Paris or something, after getting one-shot by one of 4 (!) red octabrains, but I didn't even mind, since the challenge was quite fair. My only nitpick would be the amount of blocked tiny little sprite details on the streets, which are just above the auto-climbing height of Duke, so will result in getting stuck a lot, kinda hindering the combat with e.g. scorpion tanks, which there are large numbers of as well. Besides the arcade, I really love the cinema with it's slightly over-detailed hanged curtains, the art gallery (which I almost missed), the neat sushi place and the metro stations at the beginning. However, it should be added that the whole level has a very smooth flow, despite the rather convoluted layout of the town itself, which allows for this fancy thrill of getting lost at times. The soundtrack might not be my favourite, but it works well, with a mellow start - like a calm before the storm - then heavier parts, yet ones that do not interfere with the pace of the gameplay. Great, great map!

Rating: 97/100

[Aleks]

Postmortem

This was the level I had the most comments on during the beta-phase, because the combat felt quite wrong - but it seems that now I either took a completely different path or most of these were addressed (actually, I'm pretty sure both are true!) and the map played much better. Also, during the beta the main setpiece of the level:

Spoiler

Destroying the Earth with a giant laser turret - didn't work for me, maybe because of using Polymost. Now that I could see it, I was really impressed, the whole scene is long and epic, but also very brilliant on a technical level. Although I would put the Overlord fight before triggering this event, both for the sake of clarity and storytelling.

I finished with about 760 kills (I'd estimate about 300 were slimers/eggs) and the level took me about 100 hours, so it's definitely an action packed one. There are Madlad battlelords and commanders, mad dog octabrains and assault attackers, which all are pretty damn deadly - and some rooms are particularly challenging, but I somehow didn't die at all. The space station layout is really cool, full of colours and elaborate storytelling, which explains the warp hole at one point or the non-Euclidean, overlaying geometry at another (which is also nicely mentioned at the ModDB article). Surprisingly, I didn't have much problems with the secrets, besides the last one - and the most important one, which leads to the secret exit and is triggered by a tiny button. There's a point of no return, so just a shout-out to completionists - there are 6 secrets at the "Earth" part of the level. The room with the huge button and the warp hole are probably my favourite parts design-wise, but the level is in general very good looking and full of super-creative stuff, like the weirdly-shaped forcefields around the space station. I really liked the elevator "puzzle", cool use of viewscreens but also possibility for some less mundane combat. My only complaints would be the "length padding" of some segments - like the very slow spaceship "train" you have to fly around in, huge aquarium and abundance of slimer eggs (in particular in underwater areas) were clearing them takes ages. Also, design-wise I think I'd make the windows of the space station larger (and/or the outer walls thinner) to expose more of the cosmos a'la Lunar Apocalypse, but it's something difficult to retro-fit and probably there were reasons not to do it in the first place. The final fight with Commander Keen spaceship is awesome - now I knew about the turrets, so did use them on the large battlelords, not sure to what avail. Slayer's Postmortem did fit the tempo of the map/theme, but I think it was a bit too short for the number of necessary loops throughout the level and so became a bit repetitive.

Rating: 94/100

[Aleks]

Hotel Atlantis

This level further embraces the DOS/Duke II aesthetics and combat style, which is evident from the very beginning with the modified RPVs that function literally like something out of a platformer, with a distinctive patterns of going up and down and slowly flying towards Duke, shooting their projectiles only during stops. I also like how they're quite vulnerable and easy to kill, often resulting in a fancy ejecting the pig cop pilot mid-air (pigs will fly, blah blah blah). The level itself is a very exotic mix of a city level and space level, with the Dubai thematics (and at least a 3rd iteration on the theme by MRCK) allowing for some absolutely fabulous architecture, with its highlight being a neatly curved Burj Al Arab. The main progression route is fairly simple, with three keycards being advertised all over the viewscreens - however, it's also possible to just fly straight to the nukebutton, which is in a rather open location, but where's the fun in that? Gameplay is fairly challenging, but never over the top/unfair, and there's plenty of ammo (despite several large bosses which might not be super dangerous, but eat-up on your rockets like vacuum cleaners). I particularly liked the last two larger encounters, one throwing at you 2 Madlad Battlelords and a large Cycloid Emperor and then another one with several battlelords on sniper positions with sentry drones pushing you out and scorpion tanks blocking your escape path. On the other hand, some minibosses spawned so far away from the location triggering their respawn that they went asleep way too soon (I'd suggest increasing the sleepdistance, which should be beneficial to most maps in BR in general). I'd also - once again - complain about the super slow elevators, which can be partifularly annoying considering the heights they have to traverse. Secret places are fairly easy to find/reach due to the very open nature of the map. The blue building was a really creative piece of architecture with some clever platforming involved. The final effect is quite epic, despite its simplicity. I'm not a big fan of the soundtrack used for this one because of how silent it is (barely possible to hear it), but the cosmic ambience works very well (the sounds are similar - possibly the same - as used in "Submachine", and I don't mean my map, but the point and click game it was slightly inspired by).

Rating: 95/100

Silent Scream

For me, this was the most challenging level of Blast Radius per se, because getting all the kills is damn difficult and requires a lot of save scumming/retries. I'm glad the level doesn't reset your guns/items, as devastator, shotgun, pistol, RPG and chaingun were pretty much required for the task. Nevertheless, it's a fun challenge that feels very satisfying upon completion, and the general idea behind this level is just amazingly creative, pretty much creating a whole new game in Build (a top-down shooter, but in first person view). The idea of having pieces of other maps scattered around the area or just random spinning pieces of asteroid worked great too. It reminds me a lot of the aircraft levels from Duke Nukem II, or perhaps even more of the stupidly difficult spaceship level (E4M3) from Duke Nukem Game Boy Color, but of course the execution/design is a masterpiece. Summing it up, this level is short, yet can take quite a bit to finish, but my only real complaint would be the fact you can't really enjoy the views, as you have to focus on killing stuff on your path. Another Slayer's song fit perfectly for the soundtrack of this one, very fast paced!

Rating: 97/100

[Aleks]

Finished Zarathustra, also read your article on it and I really dig all the DN1/DN2 comparison screenshots! Before I proceed to my review, I'd like to point a little inconsistency in the article though...

Quote

"Zarathustra" absolutely isn't for everyone and thus, it is no legend but an unsurprising fact that out of the five otherwise very involved, and relatively disconnected Blast Radius beta testers, every single one backed out of its challenge to a degree - or understood how this particular level by design shouldn't be merely tested, but either fully rejected or embraced as the singular experience it is.

I did finish it during the beta stage! It was only Closure that I found completely undigestive back then, but went through all of Zarathustra as intended, and I'm glad I did because it's such a cool level

Zarathustra
Needless to say, this might be your opus magnum as far as level design goes, even despite the obviously mixed responses. It starts as hostile as possible, but this time around I had a much better time with the beginning due to finding the devastator and RPG rather fast. The level generally has an insanely high accessibility threshold, which of course can be quite discouraging for people to actually complete it, but the experience is so satisfying and rewarding that it is definitely worth the effort. Gameplay probably manages to bring out all the best from every new enemy types, as all the large bosses, Madlad guys and alien assaulters feel like a lot more fair fights, yet still very challenging in this one. The level also has this natural pacing with certain events/reaching certain locations feels kinda like finishing smaller missions/parts of it, which helps with its absurd length (took me around 3 hours in total, during 4-5 sittings). The first one is marked by reaching the lava lake where you enter the planet's digestive tract after clearing out the beginning of the level (which this time went a lot smoother for me and felt less harsh than during the beta). The second act for me is acquiring the yellow keycard (which I admit might be my least favourite part of the level due to being weirdly chaotic and being a bit sloggish), which ends at the drill section. Then there's probably my favourite part, with the beautiful and creative caves that lead to the Octadeity fight, which might be my favourite part of the whole BR. The water section after this and obtaining the crystal orb makes great use of verticality. The next part takes place at the Earth museum, starting from a rather crazy fight with 2 giant-sized bosses and a smaller, but far more deadly cycoid. The design of the Earth's museum is just brilliant and despite having a jetpack, I kinda still felt the need to actually climb it all the way up by the platforming rather than just flying. It reminds me of Mister Sinister's Naked Dash, just taken a notch up. Finally, the next section is the DN2 prison, where NUKUMs show - which is just pure nostalgia, but works wonderfully. I really like the puzzle with the spaceship that has to blow up prison walls. Last part is, obviously, the insane Cycloid Archangel fight, which is just insanely difficult in more than one way. I appreciate you made a simpler connection through that wall tunnel between the museum and "first island", only now noticed it existed! Finished the level with 812 kills. Loved the soundtrack as well - "Payback" is one of my favourite Slayer songs and it fits the map both thematically and dynamically.

Rating: 98/100

[NY00123]

So, while preparing for a multiplayer game, I've been ready to finally give this a try. The moddb page says that co-op and dukematch are both supported, and I heard from Noldor Ranzou that an older version supports multiplayer (at least for co-op sessions).

Ranzou found the last version to be incompatible with NetDuke32. I retried with Ranzou and other few players, and we may confirm this. Basically, the "seta" shorthand for the setactor command is unsupported by NetDuke32 v1.2.1.

Following this, we were briefly trying the first map in an older NetDuke32-compatible version, before halting the game due to technical problems unrelated to the mod, but rather to pings (this greatly depends on factors like who's hosting and how is routing done). But even from the short snippet, it's clear that a lot of work has been done here. Hopefully, I can see more later, either in SP or Coop mode. I suppose that the SP/Coop maps also cover DM.

[ck3D]

NY00123, on 28 October 2023 - 11:57 AM, said:

So, while preparing for a multiplayer game, I've been ready to finally give this a try. The moddb page says that co-op and dukematch are both supported, and I heard from Noldor Ranzou that an older version supports multiplayer (at least for co-op sessions).

Ranzou found the last version to be incompatible with NetDuke32. I retried with Ranzou and other few players, and we may confirm this. Basically, the "seta" shorthand for the setactor command is unsupported by NetDuke32 v1.2.1.

Following this, we were briefly trying the first map in an older NetDuke32-compatible version, before halting the game due to technical problems unrelated to the mod, but rather to pings (this greatly depends on factors like who's hosting and how is routing done). But even from the short snippet, it's clear that a lot of work has been done here. Hopefully, I can see more later, either in SP or Coop mode. I suppose that the SP/Coop maps also cover DM.

Thanks a lot for the testing and report, that helps a lot and all the more so that you pointed out a solution, if it's just seta being a shorthand for setactor then I think I know what's causing this, must be just a few lines in the Zero Zone code so not troublesome to fix at all. Might be able to update real soon to eliminate the discrepancy, I don't play multiplayer so wasn't aware of it, but the maps per se technically are designed for multi (both Dukematch and Coop) with the same attention as they were for single player and that's the one whole dimension of the project I never really got feedback on (minus Noldor Ranzou once confirming to me that it worked, right after release) but really want to work well. So this is really helpful to know and I'll need to credit you for communicating the issue to me when I solve things in the update. I'll bump the thread again when that's done. Thanks again!

And of course, thanks Aleks for all the comments and reviews, really stoked you like the episode so much. Too sidetracked to give proper replies these days but I read and really appreciate everything. Re: the quote from the article, for some reason I remembered you had god modded through the ending but no you're correct, it was Closure that got you! Original version you had played was really rough, hope the final one treated you better.

[Aleks]

And finished! Time for Closure and closure.

Closure

This level was virtually impossible during the beta-test, so I had some reserve going into it, but ended up pleasantly surprised. Make no mistake - it is absolutely ruthless and harsh to the player, to the point of making Zarathustra feel like an episode of Carebears. The key strategy was diving ASAP and getting airtank, boots, then shotgun before awaking any monsters underwater, then sneaking for expander, pipebombs and freezer all the while trying to avoid fights. Then emerging, dealing with the 3 battlelords and some cannon fodder to proceed to the mission of acquiring the shrinker - from which point it was just easier. I didn't even count how many times I died - the Cycloid Emperor that spawns after inserting yellow (I think?) keycard killed me like 5-7 times alone, including twice at the same moment when my rocket killed him as well. There are also multiple possibilities of getting softlocked - including at the very end in the case of falling into one of the MONOPOLY letters (I've had a NUKUM stuck inside the O and after shrinking him and stomping, realised I can't get out - after reloading I was smarter and used pipebombs, though he does take about 30 to kill apparently!). The idea for a Monopoly game as a boss map is absolutely extreme and kinda fitting at many levels, but also dilluting the whole experience a bit IMO, but I guess that's acceptable considering this map doesn't really give you any time to think about it too much and the execution is just stellar. Perhaps the main changes I would make would be reducing the height of everything underwater like four times and adding clearer descriptions of the fields on the board - since the current sector ones are only readable with the automap. All the platforming that was this time mandatory - due to no jetpack skip - felt kinda refreshing and wasn't too difficult or even tedious, due to extreme conditions it had to be performed in. How the map changes with the progress is also very impressive, especially after pressing the "WIN" button. Then there's the final sequence, which I've seen for the first time - no idea how it was done besides the silent teleporters, but also worked great on both meta and technical levels. Great piece of level design!

Rating: 93/100

Final thoughts on Blast Radius

Well, this is definitely Aymeric's opus magnum (at least for now!). There are some of the best designed maps for Duke yet and by far some of the biggest ones - probably Incapharnaum, Zarathustra and Norilsk No-reward or Embarco's Most Blasted would take the 3 top spots in this regard. I have just summed up the amount of killed enemies in every level and the result is 7 518, which is, well, pretty crazy. It is easy to lose focus or consistency in projects 1/10 this size, so it is especially impressive that the whole thing has a very coherent narration from the beginning to the end, with maps naturally flowing into each other, the progress (or regress, depending on the events or how you look at it) is visible and keeps pushing the player to keep revealing more and more. The storytelling - both the natural one within the levels and the additional in the manual/extras in your ModDB articles - neatly loops on itself and keeps bringing up self-references in a way surprisingly subtle for a video game. I've commented each and every level separately, with my little combat, design or progression nitpicks and their individual scores - but these were more kind of a rating for the purpose of ranking, so to differentiate between which one I liked more on a personal level. After completing the whole thing, all these little potential inconveniences blur out of the memory and the episode as a whole greatly surpasses the sum of its parts. This is by far one of the most impressive things ever created in Build engine or for Duke 3D.

Final score: 100/100

[ck3D]

Thanks for the reviews again, the appreciation, the enthusiasm and now the indulgent score. Just real quick, you just mentioned softlock potential in Closure; inside of the Monopoly letters is the only intended possibility (and even then Duke dies to lava), did you happen to spot any more than that by chance, because while it's possible to fall through the gaps between a lot of the letters everywhere, unless it's those final ones there always should be a way out. For instance underwater or in the case of the C of the Electric Company space, by shooting one of the switches again (Duke's also given an Atomic Health down there to better survive the hurtrail while he considers what to do). Really glad you liked the experience so much, would have been sloppier without consulting you and every other beta tester. Cheers and catch you in the Zero Zone!

[ck3D]

Version 2.0.15 (11/03/2023) is up and rectifies the seta shorthands in the code to try and fix the current multiplayer issues (NetDuke32 conflicts) originally introduced with version 2.0.x and reported by NY00123. It also fixes a broken switch in br10.map where one secret place could softlock Duke, reported by Aleks.

Can try updating and please feel free to confirm multiplayer is good to go again: https://www.moddb.co...3d-blast-radius

[ck3D]

Straight up upgraded to v. 3.0.0 last night with the inclusion of L.A. Meltdown 2047 (vanilla) selectable as a third 'episode', also offered the map as a separate download. Briefly wrote a ModDB article also giving shout outs: https://www.moddb.co...47-new-user-map

I linked to Radar's YouTube channels and playlists but ideally I would like to rep the YouTube coverage and reactions more, including Nacho's precious commentary, I'm hoping to be able to use what's become its own mini platform to help develop that aspect of the community and involve players more in the future. I'm a bit too unfocused for longer Duke articles these days but try and keep up to date.

[NY00123]

ck3D, on 03 November 2023 - 02:06 PM, said:

Version 2.0.15 (11/03/2023) is up and rectifies the seta shorthands in the code to try and fix the current multiplayer issues (NetDuke32 conflicts) originally introduced with version 2.0.x and reported by NY00123. It also fixes a broken switch in br10.map where one secret place could softlock Duke, reported by Aleks.

Can try updating and please feel free to confirm multiplayer is good to go again: https://www.moddb.co...3d-blast-radius

Had a brief look at version 3.0.0. The seta error is indeed fixed, but it is still reproduced with setp. With an edited GAME.CON using setplayer instead of setp, I could start it in NetDuke32, including fake multiplayer mode. In case a future release of yours has other CON edits (and even if not), it might be good to test in NetDuke32 beforehand, in addition to EDuke32.

btw, I don't know if it's intentional, but NetDuke32's multiplayer menu doesn't let you select levels following the first seven for episode 1. This is also the case in Vanilla Duke3D, and must be related to map slots 9-11 representing nonexistent maps, while E1L8 is for user maps. You can still get into the maps via command-line arguments, with or without the assistance of an external multiplayer launcher. Of course, this also holds to various others contents, including older ones like "Duke, it's ZeroHour".

[ck3D]

Thanks heaps for the testing and report, I'll fix the setp shorthands with the next update, didn't realize those were problematic too, but should have. I never tried setting up NetDuke for a variety of reasons, my PC is old, slow and its disk space saturated, my Internet isn't exactly viable for online play, and to tell you the truth the last time I looked it up I couldn't be sure where to even download the correct version, that's how out of touch I've been. Didn't even know one could run it with bots for testing until you brought that up in your earlier post, definitely keeping that in mind from now on.

For sure you must be spot on regarding the level selection since that is in no way intentional from my end (but seeing how experienced with online play I sound, no doubt you figured). Interesting to know that.