Thanks for playing and congrats on full completion with all the secrets, I wonder how many people have done that. I also really appreciate all the very precisely detailed reports; it's precious help and motivating me to address all the map issues you've spotted at once for whenever I can get the next update to happen. All that info clearly will save me lots of time which in turn makes the idea of a general clean-up less fearsome and so more plausible in a rather imminent future, so I really do appreciate it. I'll make sure to credit you in the changelogs then.
I was hoping you'd find level 15/secret 2 (and am impressed whenever anyone does; it's relatively well-concealed, in deliberate contrast with the first secret level exit - out of level 7 - that is very evident to reward exploration on the most basic level possible, and is basically unavoidable unless one rushes straight to the normal Nukebutton as soon as they see it from afar). Level 15 has some of my favorite atmosphere, soundscape and end-of-level twist in the episode, it was a rather late addition but I feel like it has its place; I'm glad you found it.
For now I'll reply to a few specific points (so I guess spoiler status potentially applies to most things below on):
NY00123, on 24 June 2024 - 11:22 AM, said:
One general question coming to mind here, is how often does one use a tool like Mapster32 to construct anything based on a real-life structure/building, only for the place to be shut down and/or removed not that long later.
That really is a good question and it is so rewarding for me to hear the maps managed to make you wonder that. Exploration of the line between fiction and reality, including the concept of temporality is key to a lot of the design choices and of the direction of the project all around, but it takes a contemplative and/or curious mind to just reach that hook and realize the episode can be read on that level; a more casual or pressed player will just consume the designs as is, which is just as fine, to me.
With the breakneck pace at which major cities in general have been developing especially since the last couple of decades of globalization and gentrification, my personal guess would be, there probably isn't that many structures or regions left standing in a state that would be comparable to their Build/Duke user map recreations/stylized crystallizations at the time (of course the odds grow as the respective level(s) get(s) older; but then there's level 6 as a deliberate counterpoint). I always found it interesting how the medium could be used to suggest representations of real cities/landmarks and absorb their essence as anchored into a given point in time, in a more uncertain and uncanny way than most others i.e.. photography and its supposed fidelity. At this point I like to play with it, hence level 2 incorporating architecture that's in fact been razed and replaced throughout the 2000's and so juxtaposing current and outdated reality and/or lack thereof; level 3 also does it but there it's more vague as it spends less focus on reproducing would-be exact current settings, instead referencing mostly vibes and then some iconic but bygone/reworked locales (CBGB, the Brooklyn Banks) that are more precise but always a bit out of the way, along with looser references to different eras of local pop culture staples to keep the player subconsciously skeptical of which exact form of universe they're exploring.
I remember briefly researching the Tampere, Finland locations that
TamDuke by pmw/kk4 recreated a while back, not so long ago and while I could find most of the areas on Google maps I seemed to notice quite a lot of them had budged at least a little in reality already, when it wasn't more drastic changes. Out of all real-world recreations I've personally made throughout the decades of releasing such levels doing that, there seems to be the consensus that those spaces are a lot more dynamic and saturated now than they were back when the respective maps were drawn. Of course, the richer regions changed the most or the fastest in whichever way the local economy dictated, but usually resulting in rather homogeneous standards all around, whereas all the more popular areas didn't change much structurally unless they comprised available terrain most every inch of has since been constructed (which sometimes suffices to rearrange the landscape entirely), or they were downright demolished.
NY00123, on 24 June 2024 - 11:22 AM, said:
I found out that I often don't use laser trip bombs in campaign maps, but they had their use here; I think that at least a few people should know why.
That may be more anecdotal but I know which section you mean and I'm glad you figured out that was the intended/optimal play there. I've seen quite a few players try to rush through that part just to headbutt all the drones in succession, sometimes despite having used and seemingly analyzed what the security screen shows, and in spite of the obvious repetitive pattern from floor to floor/room to room. It's a moment I find particularly fun but that can only be experienced as such if the player cooperates.
Re: the automap easter egg, if that's the one I'm thinking of that's near the exit (at the exact crossroads between both exits in fact; the Level Lore page for level 10 designates it IIRC), it makes me happy you saw it, it may be a detail but conceptually I find it sort of makes the map.
NY00123, on 24 June 2024 - 11:22 AM, said:
Level 11 was short, but I can see the change. I think it was similarly inspired by 2D games? If not, it can be seen as such.
Two games that inspired its direction are Descent and Star Fox 64/Lylat Wars which aren't 2D, but conceptually the older 2D top-down shooter genre is referenced as soon as the player switches to automap indeed. That is because at this point Duke is nearing the source of the blast and dimensions and timelines are starting to bend and overlap, also explaining why he starts hearing voices (under the form of game quotes) from the end of that level onwards. Now that I've said this paired up with knowledge of the subsequent game events should be a bit more evident who is behind those voices. It's also where and when the game loses the mask the player had been expecting from it all along, and starts morphing and rearranging its ruleset to try and block them. The whole concept of it also fundamentally is one of a dimensional breaking point with first the longest 'straight line' sector one can draw in Build then followed by endless verticality through columns of teleporters after Duke snaps out of the ship.
NY00123, on 24 June 2024 - 11:22 AM, said:
Level 12 was when one may feel (at least initially) being close to the end, even more than levels 10-11. Its themed differently, but the outdoors area - at least on the mountains near the edges, I guess - partially reminded me of level 4 in terms of exploration. Regarding the access cards, interestingly, the blue one was the last to be found by me. I did open the way to it and used a nearby viewscreen, but didn't immediate get it, so I decided to further progress. I later re-used the viewscreen and then knew with greater chances where it could be, and found it.
I've said it before that one of my goals with level 12 was that it should feel like a 'negative' callback to 4; 4 has ethereal qualities in that it's seemingly endless/infinite which is (or used to be) a typical Duke 3D player's wet dream, that only goes so smoothly in practice due to the resulting intrinsic tedium (unless one chooses to skip most of it with the jetpack, which they really always are free to), but its exploration is exciting as its discovery is progressive. On the other hand, 12 is the nightmare version of that dream that is literally paved with pain, chaos and self-conscious anti-Build design to align with all of the deconstruction that's simultaneously happening. I think it is the culmination of all the events thus far (while level 13 would be closer to a general downfall then proceeding to end on resolve), where the map itself is its own boss the whole time you're on that planet.
Acquiring the blue key last seems to be common, I've noticed a lot of players tend to do that as it's easy to miss what the switch there does at first, which is fine as both ways are equally viable (getting it last actually may be optimal when speedrunning, that's what King Mamba did).
The jetpacks greatly facilitate all the platforming yes, but if it's possible to fly then it's not cheating. In fact a lot of the platforms exist mostly as base support (literally) for when the exceptional occasion arises that the player runs out of fuel, but since they really won't want that to happen since it alleviates so much then they're more tempted to keep an eye out on the gauge/items around them which in an already rather overwhelming context injects another layer of emergency and pressure.
I'll be looking into the clipping issues, especially the hard-to-enter cracks or secret compartments that squish the player shouldn't be happening at least in most of those cases for instance so it must be a simple collision and so sector dimension thing I should just adjust. It's funny I never caught a lot of that stuff.
The new Recons (for now still) borrow a lot from the original sentry drone code and so that's why they can clip into sloped floors or ceilings at times, it's probably first wall-dependent where/when they do, but the base drones also can do that. I don't remember studying that part of their code right now but while playing behaves like they only check for proper 'valid' z when changing/refreshing sectnum instead of considering the actual allocated game space at all times when computing movement, so they remain fixated on checking for the same set range of values until they leave the sector again, and then they suddenly just snap back onto game space from out of bounds with the next sector. It's not very apparent in the base game where slopes aren't so extreme.
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