[Mike Norvak]

Hi everyone here's an improved version of Nightshade Army, basically is the same map but with some minor tweaks and a new boss battle. I wasn't going to re release this map but, meh... So this is a perfect excuse to replay it, or take a first look if you haven't play it yet.
You should play it without Dukeplus. Just drop all the files in your EDuke32 folder including autoexec.cfg file so you can play it with the correct shadescale, otherwise it will look too dark! If you want to use HRP make sure you have a powerful pc anyway the map doesn't look that good with it. Attrition is also recomended (but not tested). 8 Bit mode not recommended. Polymer causes terrible lagg and ugly visual glitches on some spritework, so play it with Polymost.

Thanks to Supertanker and Paul B for some advices on this version.

Some shots:









HOPE U ENJOY IT!!!!!

NIGHTSHADE ARMY

[Danukem]

I was enjoying it a lot, then I couldn't find the blue keycard slot (I had the keycard). A lot of areas were pitch black because I was using the latest unofficial build that has experimental shading, so I may have missed a crack or switch in the dark. I'll try again with an older snapshot and maybe I'll have better luck.

[Danukem]

Ok, you can disregard my last post. The problems I was having were entirely due to things being hard to see in the new snapshot.

This is an amazing map. The visual style is fresh and sophisticated, and there are some really cool effects (my favorite was the jumbo jet flying by). Gameplay was above average, but not perfect. I did get a little annoyed at having to re-explore locations in the hunt for all the blue keycards. The ending was epic. Pretty damned hard and a little frustrating, mostly because of the way the boss was positioned. I played using Attrition, and as you say it is ok that way -- but it probably would have been better in DukePlus. It looked like it would work fine in vanilla Duke as well. There were a few non-vanilla weapons lying around, and some enhanced monsters and minibosses, but nothing that would break the game.

There were a few points where how to progress was not obvious. The one that almost got me was, a crack on a metal door towards the end of the map. I had to look pretty closely at the door to see that crack, and I wonder if other people will miss it.

Any true Duke fan should definitely play this map. It's a breath of fresh air in a year with few releases.

[Spiker]

This map is good and bad at the same time. The design and spritework is great but the gameplay can be frustrating at times. I had a few problems with finding a way and it was quite embarasing but finally I got to the area with a giant shuttle and I have absolutely no idea what to do now. Also I think it's too hard.

[Mikko]

I think that in the case of this map vanilla plays better than DukePlus.

[Danukem]

This is definitely a map for experienced players. However, it never crosses the line into being unfair, imo (although it comes close a few times). Anyone who considers himself to be a fan of Duke 3D should check this out. I'm going to play it again using DP this time, so I can see the stuff I missed (especially the cutscene cams).

[Mike Norvak]

Mikko_Sandt, on Jun 3 2010, 08:45 AM, said:

I think that in the case of this map vanilla plays better than DukePlus.

Yeah, maybe the gameplay is better on vanilla.

__________________________________________________________

Thanks for the comments!!!! I`m glad u like it!

[chicken]

I just finished it.
I got stuck a few times but with a little looking around i was always able to continue.
What impressed me the most was the look of some areas and the attention to detail (like all the cabinets in the "lab" could be opened, the turntables in the partypad and the jetplane flying in the background.) Some things just made me go "Wow!".

Good one!

[Forge]

Mikko_Sandt, on Jun 3 2010, 08:45 AM, said:

I think that in the case of this map vanilla plays better than DukePlus.

Agree. I also mentioned it in my beta test comments. The game is smoother in vanilla and everything works more harmoniously. The balance becomes skewed with dukeplus. Especially in the blue keycard collecting process and the initial transition into the yellow key card area.

It's a good map either way though.

[High Treason]

Good map, but there was a slight lack of ammo (or I just suck at the game?) but I enjoyed it regardless, architechture was good and I also liked the jetplane... Also might have to figure out how you did that red-key barrier

[VinsaneOne]

Great map! Using DP helps even things out alot using 2 pistols, db shotgun and the heavy rpg. But i'm suprized the use mantle option could not be changed. That would have come in very handy in some spots IMO.

[Danukem]

VinsaneOne, on Jun 3 2010, 02:00 PM, said:

Great map! Using DP helps even things out alot using 2 pistols, db shotgun and the heavy rpg. But i'm suprized the use mantle option could not be changed. That would have come in very handy in some spots IMO.

There's a few jumps that might not work with mantling, so I can understand why he disabled it.

[VinsaneOne]

DeeperThought, on Jun 3 2010, 05:08 PM, said:

There's a few jumps that might not work with mantling, so I can understand why he disabled it.

True, but one jump I spent too much time tring to make was the sign where the shotgun ammo was. I even got on the power lines from the ledge outside the building window and tried dozens of times to grab that much needed (at the time) ammo, but failed!

[Mikko]

Reviewed, check MSDN!

Anyways, the realistic running thing is horrible. It'd take a non-Duke-like mod to make it work.

[Mike Norvak]

Mikko_Sandt, on Jun 3 2010, 06:35 PM, said:

Reviewed, check MSDN!

Thanks for the review!!!!

Though, i really like several Dukeplus settings in this map.

I`m so excited with all ur comments! Glad u like it!

[Headless_Horseman]

Just finished my first playthrough ! It's an awesome map, very detailled and with a good use of DP effects (I loved the cutscene !), too bad there are some gameplay flaws :

* Realistic running sucks, as Mikko mentioned. And on the final battle is a real pain in the ass.

* Those mini-newbeast with extra health are so damn annoying !

* The final battle is simply TOO MUCH.

Apart from this, I hope you'll keep releasing map with this quality !

[Jan Satcitananda]

I played it recently with no DukePlus mod, overall it's a good map with some clever spritework (the motorcycle rocks) and interestingly performed lighting; took about forty minutes. Liked that flying saucer as well. But I saw a scenery glitch (that skyscraper made of 'breaking screens' seems to disappear when viewed from certain points).

[Stabs]

i think i know the part your talking about, it might be a polymer error related with paralax

[Mike Norvak]

CraigFatman, on Jun 6 2010, 05:08 PM, said:

I played it recently with no DukePlus mod, overall it's a good map with some clever spritework (the motorcycle rocks) and interestingly performed lighting; took about forty minutes. Liked that flying saucer as well. But I saw a scenery glitch (that skyscraper made of 'breaking screens' seems to disappear when viewed from certain points).

Yeah that ´s the only problem of using spritework buildings wich exceed the ceiling z-coord of paralaxed textures, from certain points (depending the sector layout) they disappear.

[Mike Norvak]

Headless_Horseman, on Jun 6 2010, 07:28 AM, said:

* Those mini-newbeast with extra health are so damn annoying !

Yeah, i recently replay the map and i´ve realized that when u put those special small newbeast directly on the map, they get the strenght of the regular ones. A bug of dukeplus maybe, i had replaced with spawners.

[Mike Norvak]

I have updated the map. Download link is in the first post.

[Paul B]

Norvak, on 21 January 2012 - 05:40 PM, said:

I have updated the map. Download link is in the first post.

Norvak I really enjoy your style of mapping. I haven't played this map yet but i'm definitely looking forward to it !

[Mike Norvak]

Paul B, on 21 January 2012 - 06:09 PM, said:

Norvak I really enjoy your style of mapping. I haven't played this map yet but i'm definitely looking forward to it !

How do you know you enjoy my style of mapping if you haven't played my only realeased map yet?

[Paul B]

Norvak, on 21 January 2012 - 06:12 PM, said:

How do you know you enjoy my style of mapping if you haven't played my only realeased map yet?

During the build of our Parkade.map you offered many useful tips which we included in the making of our map (back when you beta tested it). You have a good vision / creativity when it comes to making a nice looking map. I know that anything you release is going to be of quality and I look forward to playing them don't be holding back now! =)

[Paul B]

Okay I just finished the map so here's my two cents. For the record I played it using Polymer Eduke with no mods or extras as this is how I play the game. It took me 70 minutes and I died a few times but I killed every alien bastard! 182 or so, I can't remember the exact count now, I knew I should have recorded my stats. Anyway, I was trying not to miss anything but as it stands I only found 2 of the 4 secrets. The secrets I did find were amazing. The entire map layout, design & detail is mind blowing. It's hard to believe one person can do all this in a single map. What a great city map showcase!

The map killed me in one area which kind of pissed me off. It was in the hotel when you are trying to get all the blue key cards at the start you shoot that switch to open the door in the hallway on the second floor and that door also casts a black shadow when the door opens. Very cool by the way! Your attention to detail was awesome! Anyway, I opened that door and closed it and it ended up catching me in the door and it killed me. I think that hallway could have stood to be a bit deeper (longer) to prevent this from happening as the switch is too close to the end of the hallway and the hallway is also a tad too narrow.

Some visual glitches I noticed was the gate doors into the sewer area with the big spooky trees where one of the key cards are. They seem to be casting a masked wall all the way up to the sky on the back side. I'm not sure if that can be fixed or if that is a gltich with Polymer? It only seems to happen when looking at the open gate doors from a certain direction while the other direction appears just fine. I also found some swinging doors are not positioned properly in that when they open they hinge in the air and when the doors are closed you can still see past the closed door by a very noticeable hole between the door frame and the door. I'm not sure if this was done intentionally or what?

The end was fantastic! I made the mistake of trying to fight the boss from all over the map and by the tunnel road which was pretty much a death trap. Fighting him from the moped on the street (Very cool moped btw) or the disco second level balcony worked well too. I also noticed you were re-spawning ammo in certain areas of the map. Very cool! I played the map on "Let's Rock" difficulty and I found it to be damn difficult. The ammo placement was just right for me, in fact it was perfect. The placement of items was great and I really enjoyed how you made the player see something then wonder how the hell do I do that? The puzzles and tricks were fantastic and while they were extremely well thought out they weren't impossible for a n00b like myself. I've never seen sprite work used in such a unique manner before. That computer case you did with the window on the side of the case the CPU fan, rear exhaust case fan, PSU, drive bays. I must have looked at that PC case for about 5 minutes before I moved on. Very cool! You made everything look so fantastic from textures to sprites from the smallest detail to the largest it was very thorough and consistent. However, when I played the map for some reason never saw any plane fly by??? I'm not sure how I missed that and I was wanting to see that too. I guess I'll just have to play it a second time through.

My biggest beefs with the map would be:
1) Those New Aliens that spawn after using the blue key cards . They sure make it damn hard!
2) The Second Floor Hotel Hallway size. (Getting killed by that door over and over again).
3) Most rooms are a bit cramped, it would have been nice if there was a bit more spacing between tables and chairs and objects for better game play. Visually speaking it had a very scaled and proportional realistic look.
4) The odd swinging gate & door which didn't appear to be correctly positioned.
5) The flying plane actually glitches and it doesn't stop at the last locator. Infact it keeps flying right off the grid. You may want to make sure that plane (two way train) actually stops at the last locator instead of continually flying into invalid sector space.

Anyway, my rating for this map would be a 95/100 ! I enjoyed how you lead the player through the different stages and even though it was a linear map it didn't really play like your typical linear map. Area's opened up and there were multiple approaches to new emerging battles while giving the player the freedom to run around and fight battles from different angles. Well done, I had a blast! It's just too bad it doesn't completely work with Polymer. =(

Is this your first map ever? It's an amazing first public release and as far as I'm concerned it just raised the bar for Duke City maps! I enjoyed this map even more then the Roch series and it had a fitting spooky theme to it consistently through out the map.

You know, it's really tough to rate maps like this. Because while I really enjoy the maps I make, it's maps like Nightshade Army that make my own maps look plain.

Thank you for sharing! It's truly a masterpiece!

Gosh my review almost took longer than it did for you to make the map. =)

[Paul B]

Just for the record the plane doesn't fly by in 16 bit or 32 Bit Polymer mode. When I use Software mode you then can watch the plane fly by which is really impressive! I now know this map inside and out now and I must say Mike you've done one heck of a job even with the subtle one sided wall "ASS" texture in a secret room that can only be seen when cheating. The amount of detail is far beyond anything i've ever seen before. Amazing! Sorry I can't stop talking about it!
I can't believe this map only took you two months to do? I find that almost impossible to believe.

[Micky C]

Whoa Paul, learn to use the edit button it's below each of your posts.

[Mike Norvak]

Paul thank you for kind words. Sure there's much much better maps out there anyway

Paul B, on 22 January 2012 - 12:41 AM, said:

I played it using Polymer Eduke

Quote

Some visual glitches I noticed was the gate doors into the sewer area with the big spooky trees where one of the key cards are. They seem to be casting a masked wall all the way up to the sky on the back side

Quote

The flying plane actually glitches.

All those are polymer glitches, the plane and spritework surrounding buildings are invisible in fact.

Quote

The door which didn't appear to be correctly positioned.

Where's that door? maybe this only happens with polymer?

Quote

The map killed me in one area which kind of pissed me off. It was in the hotel when you are trying to get all the blue key cards at the start you shoot that switch to open the door in the hallway on the second floor and that door also casts a black shadow when the door opens. Very cool by the way! Your attention to detail was awesome! Anyway, I opened that door and closed it and it ended up catching me in the door and it killed me. I think that hallway could have stood to be a bit deeper (longer) to prevent this from happening as the switch is too close to the end of the hallway and the hallway is also a tad too narrow.

Oh yes, I forgot to wide that corridor

Quote

Very cool! I played the map on "Let's Rock" difficulty and I found it to be damn difficult.

Well, I don't implemented difficulty, maybe I can tag some monsters so it only appears on higher levels. I'm thinking about it.

Maybe someone else could tell me if the map is too difficult?

Quote

Is this your first map ever? It's an amazing first public release and as far as I'm concerned it just raised the bar for Duke City maps! I enjoyed this map even more then the Roch series and it had a fitting spooky theme to it consistently through out the map. I can't believe this map only took you two months to do? I find that almost impossible to believe.

Well it is my first finished map, since then I haven't realeased anything. I really spend 2 months more or else, but consider I took parts of different unrealeased maps (like the computer case, all the secret woman research laboratory behind the bar, the plane, some sprite buildings, part of the restaurant. You can take a look at this map to see what I'm talking about) so this save me a lot of time, also I was in a lazy part of my life in wich I haven't any job and was in school "holidays"

I'm glad you liked it. You should play all the stuff from people like Gambini, Aymeric, Oostrum bros, Taivo Maripuu (if haven't yet) to name a few, they inspired me a lot while making nsa.

[Mark]

I'm still a rookie when it comes to actually playing mods. I spend too much time creating and not playing. I'm glad I made an exception and started playing this one. On the easy level and many saves, I've been able to get pretty far into the map. I love the looks and gameplay. This has to be one of the most creative spritework maps I've played. Combinations of them to make everyday items that would normally use models.

Fantastic stuff. Thanks.

[Paul B]

Norvak, on 22 January 2012 - 10:43 AM, said:

All those are polymer glitches, the plane and spritework surrounding buildings are invisible in fact.

Hi Norvak,

I'm not too sure what to say.... I've just played the latest map again on Let's Rock difficulty. It took me 40 minutes exactly from start to finish. I killed 172 aliens and I found 6 secrets this time?. Strange because I thought there were only 4 the last time I played and somehow I found them anyway. On the topic of secrets I would like to mention an odd occurrence I have noticed with one of your secrets. It’s the secret in the strip club by the table and chairs. I've noticed if I enter into the water scene and stir up the aliens before going down into the club either one of those aliens flip that switch that opens the secret or something else triggers that secret without me having to flip the switch under the table. If the secret has already been opened up before I get there if I flip the switch the secret room will close never to open again. You may want to look into that and make it so that secret can be opened and closed as many times as you want using that switch. (This may be as simple as making that secret door an Activator instead of using a Master Switch).

Anyway, my second time through I started the map in software mode. When it was too dark to continue I made the switch half way through the map to Polymer. The strange thing was... When I played the rest of the map in Polymer mode I noticed the one sided gate mask problem was fixed & I saw the plane fly by ... Did you fix that? And even though the plane went off the screen it wasn't tearing like it was before. So I'm not sure what's going on?

Oh by the way the wider hallway works perfectly now, Thank you! I didn't see any problems with any doors not opening properly either. So either you've been extremely busy making these fixes or something weird just happened when I played it for the first time. I think you may have added more health re-spawns because I found a lot more atomic health’s and shot gun ammo this time around especially when back tracking. It definitely helps once you've played the map more than once then it’s not as tough. I think you've got a pretty good balance going on. I’m very pleased with the way the map played this time and I didn’t die once.

Thanks for addressing the glitches and updating the map! Its on the verge of perfection!

So i quickly played through the map 3 and 4 more times to confirm it wasn't a fluke. The maps playing really well with the exception of that strange secret room. But that's so minor. As a result of the map working so much better the second time around i'm updating my rating to 99.5/100.