[Banjo]

Hi all!

I am looking for a very specific old Duke3D level, one that was very distinctive because the music was Jewel's "Who Will Save Your Soul", while the level was filled with pictures of Jewel herself along with various marijuana symbols and paraphernalia!

It is purely for nostalgia; I don't remember it being a "good" level at all, but it was one of the first custom levels I ever played.

Does anyone know how or where I might find this? It was very likely I got it off a "shovelware" Duke3D CDROM back in the late 90's, since I didn't have the internet at the time Duke3D was released.

Any help on tracking this silly level down would be appreciated!

[Aleks]

I would try looking into this archive: https://dukeworld.co...ic%20dukeworld/

It contains stuff from 1996-2000ish, so I imagine the map might be there. If it contained the stuff you mentioned, even if you don't remember the name, you might want to look at larger files that could possibly contain new art.

[ck3D]

This thread is a good opportunity to point out something I noticed just recently, trying to go through my own old shovelware CD's for memories sake.

A lot of those maps (1996-1997) now downright crash Mapster (I would assume EDuke too) as soon as opened. I would estimate about 30, 40% of the ones I tried opening did. Hard crash, no error message, program just dies. (I think I remember) I tried deactivating expert mode to see if that would make a difference but it did not.

It is map specific, i.e.. it always is the same maps that crash, and the same ones that do not. Of course a lot of them are corrupted to a degree, but they used to be viable in DOS Duke/Build since they used to get around and be played. There seems to be a specific type and/or degree of chaos that used to fly, but no longer does. As a result an awful lot of those maps just aren't viable to even just load anymore at all using EDuke as a port.

Demonstration: https://www.moddb.co...s/come-get-some every other map in the EXTMAP folder on this CD (in the regular MAPS folder too, but EXTMAP is better organized and easier to explore and keep track of).

[quakis]

Aleks, on 29 July 2026 - 12:44 PM, said:

I would try looking into this archive: https://dukeworld.co...ic%20dukeworld/

It contains stuff from 1996-2000ish, so I imagine the map might be there. If it contained the stuff you mentioned, even if you don't remember the name, you might want to look at larger files that could possibly contain new art.

To further narrow the above search down, take a look through this section: https://dukeworld.co...ukem%203D/Maps/

iirc Forge? organised these folders sorted by year and if the maps contain new art or cons (example: https://dukeworld.co...%20Player/1996/)

If you can recall anything about the shovelware CD itself, even a vague name or if it were a region specific release or maybe included stuff for other games, that could help too.

[NNC]

Hint: if the map has custom art, music, don't even check files with small size. Dukeworld list show file sizes at least.

[Banjo]

Thanks for the tips and help so far, folks!

This is really looking for a needle in a haystack! I will try to recall the shovelware CD cover/name. It would have to have been sold in Australia (so possibly local but very much more likely a US release, but not a non-English one for sure).

In the meantime, I downloaded the *whole* of Dukeworld's old map archive and then ran Agent Ransack on all the (thankfully separate!) text files, searching for "new music : yes" but sadly nothing stands out so far.

[Banjo]

(apologies for the double post, I can't seem to edit my previous post)

I FOUND IT!

Thanks to the link provided above, I checked out the "unsorted" maps at Dukeworld... I'd only checked the sorted ones before. I tried "Maps with New Art" first and *immediately* the name "STRNGDAY.ZIP" jumped out at me!

I instantly remembered trying that map from a shovelware CD (out of the hundreds on it) thinking it might be based on the movie Strange Days and thus be a cool cyberpunk-themed map. Instead, I got the fever dream stoner map by a Jewel fan!

Nothing in the readme suggests what it contains, but the name was enough.

I loaded it up in vanilla Duke3D AE via DOSBox and sure enough, it was the one. It's a mess running (music and sound issues) which I suspect is to do with how you need to run a batch file to rename the extra mod files first (which I did) but it has been decades since I messed around with Duke3D custom levels or modding, so likely I've just done something wrong... or, as another poster mentioned, some of these old maps always had issues!

I am going to try and get it running in eDuke tonight.

Again, a huge thanks to everyone who posted here and helped me find this silly bit of bizarre nostalgia. I hadn't thought about it since I was in college!

Cheers!

[quakis]

Good to hear you found it!

Banjo, on 01 August 2026 - 02:23 AM, said:

I am going to try and get it running in eDuke tonight.

In case you have some trouble, here's a quick reference and my recommended way for loading similar maps via Eduke32:

• Create a folder in the root Eduke directory (let's call it "Strange") and extract the contents of the zip inside. We can load this content as and when we choose in a moment.
  
• Then run the included nset.bat inside this folder, this will just rename all the files to their proper extensions.
  
• If you have Eduke32's setup gui on by default, launch Eduke32, then select the "Custom Game Content Directory" and select the "Strange" folder you created
  
• (If not, open eduke32.cfg in notepad and change

  ForceSetup = 0

  to

  ForceSetup = 1

  )
  
• Press start and under new game > usermaps, you can select strngday.map with the appropriate custom art and sounds

Doing it this way just keeps your root directory cleaner, without having to remove files later, otherwise they take priority when playing other levels.
Just remember to unselect the custom content directory after launching Eduke32 when you don't want to run those custom files.

[Banjo]

quakis, on 01 August 2026 - 02:58 AM, said:

Good to hear you found it!


In case you have some trouble, here's a quick reference and my recommended way for loading similar maps via Eduke32:

• Create a folder in the root Eduke directory (let's call it "Strange") and extract the contents of the zip inside. We can load this content as and when we choose in a moment.
  
• Then run the included nset.bat inside this folder, this will just rename all the files to their proper extensions.
  
• If you have Eduke32's setup gui on by default, launch Eduke32, then select the "Custom Game Content Directory" and select the "Strange" folder you created
  
• (If not, open eduke32.cfg in notepad and change

  ForceSetup = 0

  to

  ForceSetup = 1

  )
  
• Press start and under new game > usermaps, you can select strngday.map with the appropriate custom art and sounds

Doing it this way just keeps your root directory cleaner, without having to remove files later, otherwise they take priority when playing other levels.
Just remember to unselect the custom content directory after launching Eduke32 when you don't want to run those custom files.

Thanks for the tips! I should have read them before I did it the long way, but I turned it into a GRP file! At least I know for other maps in future.

eDuke can load it fine (I played the whole map through twice to check, talk about nostalgia!) and in theory should be usable with DOS Duke3D too without the need to rename files. However, given how long it is since I've done this stuff, I may have messed up along the way!

I did notice some bugs while playing, but they were also present when I played the original version (map plus renamed loose files) in vanilla Duke3D via DOSBox, so presumably these are errors in the map itself? I'd love to fix them, but like I said, it's been a very long time!

Huge thanks to everyone here who helped me track down this obscure piece of my own personal backstory. It was fun rediscovering it!

If anyone is interested (bug info, my ramblings, and the GRP file conversion):
https://banjosmods.w...y-roland-blais/

[ck3D]

Just skimmed through your blog a little, I really appreciate that it exists and people are still putting effort into writing vs. everything streamable video and all the usual whatnot.

Fun fact I was one proxy away from finding your map, even though I had no idea WTF a Jewel was but that we were looking for its case (ba-dum-tss). Your thread made me start an EDuke bug report thread after I remembered I could no longer check a lot of shovelware-era user maps in current versions of the port (that's being looked into, unless it turns out the problem is on me), thread in which I uploaded the EXTMAP folder from the 'Come Get Some!' compilation (Softkey, 1997) as a sample for debugging purposes. Whilst at it I checked every .txt file attached to the maps in that folder in case I could find yours, and it actually was in there, and I even looked at it and read the thing. But it eluded me for the exact same reason as you, .txt file mentions absolutely nothing about the contents of the map Glad you found it.

I read that you would be interested in fixing the bugs. I'm sure any competent mapper could clean those up in seconds, however I do appreciate that you are being considerate of the original author's intent. Could always track them down to find a possibly newer email, but that always comes with the catch of sounding like that guy, 'hey, remember the video game level you made for fun thirty years ago then completely moved on from, well I do and here are all of my questions about it'. If I were you I would just edit my local copy (or get it edited).

TBF one reason why I've been digging through those old shovelware folders lately (especially maps that came with custom .art) is I believe there would be something really cool to do in making modern versions of lots of them, using the original texture packs for each and just recycling the level concept/theme into new layouts that would be more of the time (for better and for worse), especially if there is contrast between .art quality and .map potentially could look pretty funny but hey the things one would do with unlimited time.