Dr.Panico, on 03 June 2023 - 11:51 AM, said:
Excellent map! Took me 79 minutes. Very challenging on the combat department. There have been multiple times I had to run around the map for more ammo, because the enemy waves kept coming (though nowhere near as hard as Zarathustra. But, then again, nothing is...); thankfully the level layout is very open, so navigation is pretty smooth. I only got screwed in one of the boss battles on the Jumeirah building where I wasted almost all of my explosives; but that's because of how the Build engine handles slopes.
I especially loved the look of the map. The colorful buildings, combined with the space rips and the music, created a uniquely surreal atmosphere. Some seriously impressive terrain shifting as well.
Thanks for playing and commenting, glad your experience was fun. Yeah the map does this gimmicky thing with the weapon distribution that is compartmentalized, each set of houses at the end of the first four streets conceal a different gun (the placement of which isn't marked by security cams but constantly suggested in plain sight with abundance or rarity of the corresponding ammo), first pair of streets has the chaingun and shotgun respectively, then the second the RPG and Devastator. And then if one's missed anything then there are opportunities to fetch the explosive and chemical weapons (RPG, Devastator, Freezer, Shrinker, Expander) earlier and/or later depending on whether one runs into the secret places, or just end up at a certain stage of the level eventually.
I think a lot of what I like about Duke 3D has to do with the stimulation of the reflexes and reaction time with all the constant weapon switching, now maps that take the risk of having the player run even out of pistol ammo are rare but here I think I managed to teach the player the use of the most underrated weapons a little better by introducing the possibility of last resort strats and scenarii. There always is something to fall back on nearby and in case the last fight was particularly intense that it cleared up an entire area also of items then the player should have realized by then that all the houses they had to traverse at the start were deep ammo caches. In this map by design the player will naturally want to progress ahead but keep getting pushed back until no one is left resisting anymore, in that sense it's a bit similar to the San Francisco and maybe Norilsk level(s) in Blast Radius but a bit clearer since introducing the new enemies and scale to the player wasn't the goal anymore, could afford a smoother traversal that would feel like a giant playground with the only in-your-face novelty elements being literally the Renegade RPV's.
Zarathustra was meant to represent literal pain, when Hotel Atlantis is more akin to suspended limbo, but I can see why you would compare the two since they have a colorful and atypical design style in common (and personally Hotel Atlantis I just realized also reminds me quite a bit of Koodbool). This level clearly isn't to be a literal battle against yourself, it's a more traditional hit-and-run type of cruise which should feel nice and swift, with the twist that you have to watch your resources quite a bit. It's not Metroidvania-esque but maybe quite.
I think I know which boss you mean, the big blue Battlelord (Permafrost) that spawns after you reach one of the Devastators and the road blows up right? Yeah that one can be tricky, usually you can tell whether or not your shots connect, just it's a bit difficult from such distances. Usually the freezer shots will bounce back in a diagonal column, or you'll see whether or not hitscan and explosives register because of the gibs. I considered moving that one but realized it wasn't so bad to encourage the player closer and also it looks pretty trippy like that regularly walking back up and/or hopping down the slope. There were two stayput Sunburnt Battlelords that I did delete, originally the red lamps on top of the Burj Al Arab had one each which would respawn upon activating the blue lock. Except they were dead easy to forget about and miss sniping from distance, which meant they would be waiting for you from both directions once finally on top of the last elevator puzzle. I think that actually was my original intent when putting them in except then it happened to me and I got so frustrated I instantly turned them into Renegade Recons.
Glad you liked the music too, I don't think I had any other possible choice.
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