[pepsodent]

my 2nd map, locked and loaded, is out!

A train level, one of my favourite types of a map, now made by me! A 2nd map I worked on, which I'm very proud of that it turned out so good.

Some of you who seen (and helped!) my progress on this map already know that this was supposed to be part of episode that I haven't figured the name for. Its still is, however I decided to release it as a demo due to some personal stuff in my life. Once on the internet always on the internet, you know the stuff. The whole thing is still planned and slowly being worked on don't worry about that. Check the screenshots and link to download bellow and share your thoughts and feedback, all critique is welcome as I'm still a newbie into the mapping stuff. The last paragraphs are spoilery as its about my thoughts on the map and how it came to be, read it after playing it




link: https://www.moddb.co...cked-and-loaded

Now, my thoughts on the map. I love train maps, before and when making this one I played many of them to see what works and what doesn't. Lets see the biggest issue - due to the nature of the setting these types of maps are very linear, a straight line. Some maps, like Blood's train level, add backtracking to pad it out. Its okay, but doesn't fix the issue of replayability. I tried to take on these 2 problems by making you start at the middle of the train, now you have 2 paths to take. To fix the backtraking both paths now progress your map, if you go to back of the train you get a key, if you go forward you get same key. That way no matter what you take you don't have a problem of picking a wrong way. However something I wanted as I planned the layout was to have a use for 2nd yellow key, but couldn't find place for it, so I'll figure it out for ultimate definitive edition that will come out in 10 years when I finally finish this damn episode. Another big thing I did was add TROR into the equation, and now that you can change between top and bottom parts of the map at almost any time the replayability options are near limitless! But I'm not done yet, you also get a jetpack! A train level with a jetpack, now you don't even have to play on train itself, get the jetpack, a rocket launcher too from the supply boxes in your starting car and go nuts on this map. This is why it's so open and free to go, I decided refrain from blocking lines, instadeath sectors and keep the massive skip, yeah you can beat the map in 30 seconds, but you will miss out on all the fun. The choice is up to you.
From the very start of making it I had set myself to make an ultimate train level so I'm asking you if I succeeded at taking this big task as my 2nd map ever. There are still issues like cramped Insides of the train and enemy AI struggling with it. The styles of 8 grey cars are drastically different, I probably should've picked a specific texture style. The final passenger cars are a bit lacking on combat side, but that could be interpreted as the map taking more chill end to things after intense fights in main section of the map. I haven't done the moving scenery on conveyors, didn't have time for it. I also wanted to build a city on horizon, as this train is moving to LA by the plot of the episode. I'll get to it all when finalizing it in the future for sure

[Mike Norvak]

Congratulations!

[pepsodent]

some real life stuff the map was based on

[ck3D]

Map was some of the most fun times I've had in Duke in a while, creative and fluid from start to finish, difficulty just right, really cool unique detail and practical setups everywhere. Leaving the progression wide open always is a bold choice but I adore that you went that direction. Structure/composition/pacing of the level also great (no matter how exactly one goes at it). Original fine use of fogpals subtly throughout. Lovely mood and awesome action amidst some unique vistas.

Good luck on your episode, the secret to managing such a project is let it drive you crazy to a degree but not too crazy. Build is such a time sink.

[Jan Satcitananda]

Pretty solid for a second map. I love trains a lot, and I think that train levels have a lot of potential to show despite their forcedly linear layout. I appreciate your original ideas and great attention to lighting and detail. I liked that you used some real photo references for your train and tried to make it look similar to existing machinery, keeping the industrial theme with some mix of freight, passenger cars and other rail vehicles--every car is unique and serves its function inside the level. The gameplay is rather short and straightforward though, just about ten minutes to explore the entire train, get to the cabin and a few minutes to get 100 % kills (I found 3 secrets out of 5). The map is filled with various cool things, clever use of fogpals, explosions with walls blowing up and a rotating crane, all this with cool industrial design based on real life stuff.

Starting the map inside a locked crate was a fun and nicely executed idea, but thereafter just getting to the motorman's cabin and pressing the nukebutton is perhaps the most generic and uninspired ending one can do in a train map. I suppose, a train map could be more interesting if you kept going back and forth along the train, using various devices and see the train change everytime as you advance through the plot, maybe some cars being replaced, detroyed or added (as much as one can do with vanilla Duke effects). I understand that this is still a newbie map, but you can use your imagination to put some surreal and non-conventional stuff along the way. An intro part before you get on the train could also add to the value (e.g. some story about how you ended up getting on the train inside that box). As the name suggests, you have "locked and loaded" yourself on board, so it may be tempting to see how exactly that happened.

Overall the map is a bit reminiscent of the early BobSP maps, short, high-detailed and realistic. What may need some work design-wise is the surrounding scenery, which is empty and flat, not looking like a real location. Some trees and objects passing by could make the scenery more interesting. You can watch High Treason's tutorials on conveyor belts where he shows how to make sprites loop endlessly using another hidden sector. I also suppose that some moving hills can be simulated using the "float" effect.

Some bugs/weird things I've noticed:

What is the second yellow keycard for? You might have intended to place the yellow keycard on the crane, but there's also a second yellow keycard inside the crate on the other end of the train. As a consequence, I finished the level with an extra yellow card and nothing more to unlock with it. Is that intentional so you can complete the level both ways?

Also you can jump off the train and slide to the edge of the map, remaining alive all the way through. Some enemies may also end up staying there until you shoot them down. This is strange and makes it harder to get every kill. Normally you should die if fell off the train (this can be done using a silent teleporter to nowhere or to a squished sector). And if you want the player to stay alive after falling, you should provide some gameplay there with a consistent way to return back on the train, and not an empty sector that seems to "move" together with the train itself.

[pepsodent]

thanks for playing! This is meant to be a short but hectic map so I didn't bloat it with more backtracking. Now lets go over some other stuff you mentioned

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I suppose, a train map could be more interesting if you kept going back and forth along the train, using various devices and see the train change everytime as you advance through the plot, maybe some cars being replaced, detroyed or added (as much as one can do with vanilla Duke effects). I understand that this is still a newbie map, but you can use your imagination to put some surreal and non-conventional stuff along the way

No unnecessary backtracking. I had some other ideas for 'act 2' of the map after picking up blue key but they were scraped. Won't tell what it was in case I figure it out for later.

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An intro part before you get on the train could also add to the value (e.g. some story about how you ended up getting on the train inside that box). As the name suggests, you have "locked and loaded" yourself on board, so it may be tempting to see how exactly that happened.

The theme of this map is train and train only, you are on a road to somewhere. Now how you got captured and what happens to the train after you nuke the thing I will try to show in that WIP episode. Again as I mentioned I was out of time and pressured by real life stuff so I had to release the map on its own, as a demo of sorts.

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Overall the map is a bit reminiscent of the early BobSP maps, short, high-detailed and realistic. What may need some work design-wise is the surrounding scenery, which is empty and flat, not looking like a real location. Some trees and objects passing by could make the scenery more interesting. You can watch High Treason's tutorials on conveyor belts where he shows how to make sprites loop endlessly using another hidden sector. I also suppose that some moving hills can be simulated using the "float" effect.

Scenery was a thing on a list, High Treason's New Invasion episode was mentioned in inspirations specifically for that trick. I messed up some stuff early on and I'd have to take some more time to make the scenery as right as it can be with all the limitations of vanilla duke. Not sure how I could use float affect in there though. I love a pretty looking map.

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What is the second yellow keycard for? You might have intended to place the yellow keycard on the crane, but there's also a second yellow keycard inside the crate on the other end of the train. As a consequence, I finished the level with an extra yellow card and nothing more to unlock with it. Is that intentional so you can complete the level both ways?

Yes, 2 keys are there so both ways push your map progression without one of them feeling like a side path. One of the ideas I had for 2nd key was some secret in the train, but after I finished decorating all cars it turned out that there's no good space for a 2nd key! This is bad and I should've probably removed 2nd key for now to stop the confusion. I'd have to somehow crack open the crazy TROR stuff going on and add another rail car in the chain somewhere, which I do not look forward to since its very easy to break the whole thing.

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Also you can jump off the train and slide to the edge of the map, remaining alive all the way through. Some enemies may also end up staying there until you shoot them down. This is strange and makes it harder to get every kill. Normally you should die if fell off the train (this can be done using a silent teleporter to nowhere or to a squished sector). And if you want the player to stay alive after falling, you should provide some gameplay there with a consistent way to return back on the train, and not an empty sector that seems to "move" together with the train itself.

yeah this is bad and immersion breaking. The idea to put something in there to get you back to the train is interesting though, I'll write that down

[brullov]

Fantastic work, you're one of my favorite mappers now. Jan has given you very nice feedback that perfectly aligns with my view, although I'd like to give a few personal ideas that came to my mind while playing this level. This is just a bunch of suggestions for you to think about, and they do not claim to be the best or right. I also understand that you released it as a demo.

1. When the player climbs up on the roof through the hatch, there is a little lag spike. I know that as a level designer, you don't have a lot of control over how the game works, but you can simply avoid implementing such things. The train roof is a great concept, and I'd not remove that part. However, I'm strongly suggesting removing that hatch and probably making the roof accessible only from the outside.
2. Trains are linear, and it sucks. The roof somehow helps to break it, so why not develop this concept a little bit further? I'm thinking about a double-decker train, which is pretty common in both industrial and passenger trains.
3. There is also one more way to break the linearity even more: add one more railway track, and another train. Maybe it appears after some event? So the player needs to jump from one train to another.
4. I really liked it when the train's doors opened and aliens started attacking you from the outside. But it's the only global event for the whole level that makes it boring pretty quickly. Why not blow off something? Maybe the unnecessary, completed part of the train, or some part of the coach. Or a bomber aircraft flying over and attacking when the player is outside.

I strongly recommend playing the train level from the Death Wish (custom campaign for Blood). It's the first level for episode 2, I believe.

[pepsodent]

brullov, on 25 October 2025 - 02:51 PM, said:

Fantastic work, you're one of my favorite mappers now. Jan has given you very nice feedback that perfectly aligns with my view, although I'd like to give a few personal ideas that came to my mind while playing this level. This is just a bunch of suggestions for you to think about, and they do not claim to be the best or right. I also understand that you released it as a demo.

Thanks for playing! I'm happy to hear that you like my maps and style as your work was one of the big inspirations in general, the slick clean but detailed industrial look of your maps is a big inspiration for me.

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1. When the player climbs up on the roof through the hatch, there is a little lag spike. I know that as a level designer, you don't have a lot of control over how the game works, but you can simply avoid implementing such things. The train roof is a great concept, and I'd not remove that part. However, I'm strongly suggesting removing that hatch and probably making the roof accessible only from the outside.

you say the lag spike happens only near the hatch, are you sure its the lag spike? There are a few invisible sprites that act as a ladder and maybe sudden change of height was mistaken for lag? I understand the issue of map optimization so if there will be more complaints about those specific hatches I will consider removing them as there's already many options to get to the roof.

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2. Trains are linear, and it sucks. The roof somehow helps to break it, so why not develop this concept a little bit further? I'm thinking about a double-decker train, which is pretty common in both industrial and passenger trains.

Double deck was a thought when making but I never actually got to build one. I think it would look out of place, too goofy maybe. I won't make it but I think the roofs of the train could use more detail though

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3. There is also one more way to break the linearity even more: add one more railway track, and another train. Maybe it appears after some event? So the player needs to jump from one train to another.

That was the big plan but 2 way train effector is limiting factor here. I wanted a second train to attack our main one, even have some scraps in my map versions, I'll try again when I'll get to updating it

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4. I really liked it when the train's doors opened and aliens started attacking you from the outside. But it's the only global event for the whole level that makes it boring pretty quickly. Why not blow off something? Maybe the unnecessary, completed part of the train, or some part of the coach. Or a bomber aircraft flying over and attacking when the player is outside.

was there not enough destruction as is? I could maybe make more holes in the cars but nothing too big like the air bomber thing you mentioned, would have to slap more TROR to show it flying over the train without glitching out sectors

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I strongly recommend playing the train level from the Death Wish (custom campaign for Blood). It's the first level for episode 2, I believe.

Someone didn't read the readme.txt! Death Wish is mentioned as one of the big inspirations although not that specific level you mentioned. I was taking notes from another secret map from that 2nd episode, an actual train map.

[Aleks]

Just played it - very well designed map, though I did have some problems with heavy lags whenever entering the rooftops (the hatch is certainly not the culprit), which made it very difficult for all the wrong reasons. What I liked in particular was the use of palettes and details in the design, the red "1st class" passenger car and the armory car in particular looked cool, also the train engine and the cranes were neat. The ability to kinda freely explore the train was nice as well and some of the effects were really cool, like the initial smashing of the trooper with the box! I found all the secrets, but there were times where I was really low on health and the ammo was quite scarce as well (no auto-aim at the roof made me use much more bullets than normally for some reason), but it's something I actually tend to like in maps. Now some criticisms - although I definitely wouldn't recommend any heavy changes to the map:

• The interior of the train felt quite cramped/narrow and probably could benefit a bit from "ck3ding" it and making it wider even at the cost of being a bit unrealistic. This made a lot of the fights inside fairly easy to cheese. It isn't something I would change if you decide to make a new version of the map for your episode though, as it would take way too much work.
• The roof... The lag spikes alone made it terrible, but the turret placement was kinda dickish as they would just appear on both sides of you when in the centre of the car, which always resulted in some damage. Might be the lag making it worse, but it was extremely annoying part of the map IMO.
• The ability to get off the train and still "travel along" with it then come back definitely needs to be changed, I would just have the player killed whenever they fall off. Also would get rid of the tank, its appearance was nicely done with some effects, but then it always will just fall off and get pushed towards the end, then snipe on you. I ended up just falling off on purpose, going back to it, nukebuttoning it then jumping back, which felt kinda silly...
• Some parts looked a bit too much inspired by Ion Fury train level to be honest - in particular, the cargo car with boxes and sides opening and the yellow key cabin felt almost like a recreation of the IF train level (overall though, I liked your level more than IF's train level).
• The flying enemies (commanders and, surprisingly, sentry drones) worked really well attacking from the sides of the train, but troopers tended to land and then be pushed along... Maybe octabrains would work better there?
• Slide doors inside the train (not between the cars) tend to close too fast, which is kinda annoying.

I wouldn't add much effects/explosions to the map, it seems all it needs IMO is some more thorough polishing related to the gameplay.

[pepsodent]

Aleks, on 26 October 2025 - 03:11 PM, said:

Just played it - very well designed map, though I did have some problems with heavy lags whenever entering the rooftops (the hatch is certainly not the culprit), which made it very difficult for all the wrong reasons. What I liked in particular was the use of palettes and details in the design, the red "1st class" passenger car and the armory car in particular looked cool, also the train engine and the cranes were neat. The ability to kinda freely explore the train was nice as well and some of the effects were really cool, like the initial smashing of the trooper with the box! I found all the secrets, but there were times where I was really low on health and the ammo was quite scarce as well (no auto-aim at the roof made me use much more bullets than normally for some reason), but it's something I actually tend to like in maps. Now some criticisms - although I definitely wouldn't recommend any heavy changes to the map:

• The interior of the train felt quite cramped/narrow and probably could benefit a bit from "ck3ding" it and making it wider even at the cost of being a bit unrealistic. This made a lot of the fights inside fairly easy to cheese. It isn't something I would change if you decide to make a new version of the map for your episode though, as it would take way too much work.
• The roof... The lag spikes alone made it terrible, but the turret placement was kinda dickish as they would just appear on both sides of you when in the centre of the car, which always resulted in some damage. Might be the lag making it worse, but it was extremely annoying part of the map IMO.
• The ability to get off the train and still "travel along" with it then come back definitely needs to be changed, I would just have the player killed whenever they fall off. Also would get rid of the tank, its appearance was nicely done with some effects, but then it always will just fall off and get pushed towards the end, then snipe on you. I ended up just falling off on purpose, going back to it, nukebuttoning it then jumping back, which felt kinda silly...
• Some parts looked a bit too much inspired by Ion Fury train level to be honest - in particular, the cargo car with boxes and sides opening and the yellow key cabin felt almost like a recreation of the IF train level (overall though, I liked your levIonel more than IF's train level).
• The flying enemies (commanders and, surprisingly, sentry drones) worked really well attacking from the sides of the train, but troopers tended to land and then be pushed along... Maybe octabrains would work better there?
• Slide doors inside the train (not between the cars) tend to close too fast, which is kinda annoying.

I wouldn't add much effects/explosions to the map, it seems all it needs IMO is some more thorough polishing related to the gameplay.

thanks for playing!
TROR lag is nasty and was my big worry when making it, the map is quite a slideshow in editor with all additional technical sprites, but that was one thing that really makes the map stand out among other train levels so I do not want it to go. There's nothing interesting on the roof aside from more straightforward path to keys and those turrets. I'm definitely changing them as they annoy me too and near impossible to kill without autoaim or precious rare explosives.
I'm not adding any punishment for dropping out of the train as the only other option is instakill which is just antifun design, something that was common in other train maps and I hated it. There are no good other options for hurtfloors that would also be a decent choice for texturing the desert, at most I will fix that broken end of the map and make it kill enemies and player.
Ion Fury as was mentioned is one of the big inspirations for the map and one of my main mappping inspirations in general, so it does stick out as blatant rip off of it. The art is in hidding your inspirations so I'll think of something to make it less obvious. Cool that you liked mine more than Fury's, that was kinda the plan to top it and just in general make a good Duke train level as there's not many to choose from
its cool how drones turned out in this map as their placement was pure random and more of 'I never used them before so lets do it now'. If the walls of freezer car are destroyed they pop out which is super cool to see. The problem with most other enemies here is that they are retarded and get pushed by very fast conveyor even when not directly touching it, commanders did it during testing so I assume same would happen to octobrains.
I'll update autoclose delay on doors, it is annoying but I don't want it removed