[Micky C]

Hi everyone,

After more than a year in the making, here's the Beach CBP! An epic adventure with a theme centered on (you guessed it) beaches! One of the lesser done themes in Duke.
The story: Those alien scum have once again ruined Duke's vacation, and it's up to him to fight his way across the beach-covered bay towards the dam to (sigh) deactivate the portal that they're using to transport to Earth. The map is more original than the plot.

It's a large map with over 400 enemies, and will probably take you between 40 minutes and an hour to complete. Included is an original music track by Henri K.

I encourage everyone try try out the map and leave their thoughts. Positive comments only Nah all comments are welcome

The main mappers for this one are:
Micky C
Undertaker
SuperTanker
Heavily polishing was done by Micky C and Undertaker, with some help from Forge.

With small contributions from:
Norvak
Captain Awesome

There were others initially involved with the project, and to find out what happened to them, and to see the list of betatesters and other details, read the txt.

Attached File(s)

•  BCBP.zip (3.35MB)
  Number of downloads: 397

[Jblade]

I played the beta, gonna replay the final soon. This map is really fantastic and feels really cohesive, so I'd highly recommend everybody to check it out.

[Forge]

it has that nice cbp feel to it where you can tell that different styles are being applied, but the transition from one section to the next is quite fluid

[Micky C]

What some may find surprising is that most of the sections in that map were actually built at the same time (or otherwise intended for a different map), and then combined together afterwards. This is in comparison to the traditional CBP building method where one person makes a section, then another person adds on to the previous section.

IIRC that beach area you see (my section) is the oldest one in the map, not that it was that detailed before the polishing stage though.

[Loke]

I'm surprised how long the map was. Whenever I were about to exit one section of the map I thought the inevitable standard boss battle were coming up but instead I was greeted with yet another big area to explore. Took me about 53 minutes to complete but I got lost for about 8 minutes near the beginning when looking for the blue key card before the train section.

[Paul B]

Sweet! something to do tonight after work.. But the real question I have is... Does it work with Megaton Duke? Can this map be played in Co-op? It looks like a great Co-op Map.

[underTaker]

We actually really wanted it bo be good coop-playable. The hardest difficulty level is designed specially for coop. We suggest to try it out.
It was tested on Megaton, and worked.

[MetHy]

Took me 55mins and found 5/8 secrets and I can't believe I let the same song loop for 55mins so I guess that means it fits the map well!..
Really good map, some places were less detailed than the rest (mainly indoors araes) but overall really good.
Has a nice feel to it which we don't get often in Duke3D (on the beach I was expecting the big balls to bounce when hitting them, apparently I was believing I was playing Caribbean Life )
Gameplay had actually its fresh moments too and gave the right ammount of freedom.
But what makes this map really good is that it never gets boring despite the length : the layout makes indoor/outdoor and different kind of places succeed each other always at the right time, in a way that makes the whole map flow really well.

and yes, it's probably a good map for coop.

Also nice choose of sandbeach texture. Had never thought about it and it works really well, I had to check in Build to know what texture it is. As for little details I also really liked the alien structure in the cave and the way you used the classic E1L1 red doomdoor texture.

[Micky C]

So I've put the map up on Workshop. If you like it, please rate it up! I'm sure you will all agree that maps like this deserve to be played more than some of the trash people put up there. I mean how can the sands of time have a 5 star rating? In the description lunick (?) actually admits the map is ugly and doesn't have great gameplay.

http://steamcommunit...s/?id=232568868

[faked]

My opinion,Mickey C?Sublime!And beautiful,of course.

[Mike Norvak]

 Micky C, on 26 February 2014 - 07:07 PM, said:

I mean how can the sands of time have a 5 star rating? In the description lunick (?) actually admits the map is ugly and doesn't have great gameplay.

There is only one explanation for this......

[Steambull]

It was nice to play a summer/holiday themed map after such a long time. A lot of great looking areas and cool effects.

Outdoor shading was done very well, although the shady areas should've been even darker to make it feel like there was intense sunlight scorching on you. Design was very good and the inconsistency that comes from many people working on the same map wasn't too distracting. Maybe a bit too many themes were blended in, some of the hi-tech interiors were straying a bit too much from the feel of the beaches and canyons (btw, that big beach looked wonderful). A minor complaint from the many misaligned textures, oversized objects and badly stretched sprites/textures.

Having so many wide open areas automatically creates some gameplay problems, like getting fired by enemies from who knows where, and having to use the pistol a lot. Also, I have to mention about the plants (bushes, weeds) being blocking-on sprites, I don't like that one bit.

Very nice job, this map is definitely worth a Coop run as well.

[pacman]

I havent finished it. Design is great but FPS gets really low on the beach. It needs more ammo, a lot more. I ran out of ammo all the time. When the commanders spawn after you cross the bridge its ridiculous, I couldn't continue the level.

[Helixhorned]

Nice, nice! It's such a friendly and bright map that I want to stop doing all work and swap places with Duke. Also, I find the design very consistent for a CBP; weapon/enemy ratio is perfect. Great work everyone!

Right now I'm a bit stuck. In here,

am I supposed to use the "bug jump", or is it a map bug that it's possible to jump into there?

[MetHy]

Check the truck.
It's something you have to do used a lot in duke maps which comes from The Birth episode.

[Micky C]

 pacman, on 27 February 2014 - 10:31 AM, said:

I havent finished it. Design is great but FPS gets really low on the beach. It needs more ammo, a lot more. I ran out of ammo all the time. When the commanders spawn after you cross the bridge its ridiculous, I couldn't continue the level.

Heh, it's probably one of the few vanilla maps that actually has framerate issues in polymost. (Are there any others?). It's ok most of the time but there are moments when you're viewing the whole map where it can be a bit borderline, depending on your computer. IMO it's fully playable.

As for the ammo issue, believe me we did lots of playtesting. Even without secrets there should be more than enough ammo. You're either:
a ) Not using weapons appropriately (either wasting ammo, or not using the right weapon for the right enemy) or
b ) Not actually exploring the map. There are ammo pickups and things in corners of areas and so on. Chances are if there's a corner you haven't looked around yet, there's ammo behind it. Not to mention there are some pretty easy to find secrets (both "official", or just 'hidden' areas) which would help you out.

Since the post directly below yours calls the ammo/enemy ratio perfect, I'd be leaning on the side of it being your fault and not the map's. If you're not doing so already, play the map on piece of cake (although it's still probably a touch harder than your average piece of cake).

[Kyanos]

 Helixhorned, on 27 February 2014 - 11:07 AM, said:

Right now I'm a bit stuck. In here,
,snip,
am I supposed to use the "bug jump", or is it a map bug that it's possible to jump into there?

I got stuck there myself too. I used roids through a window to move ahead on my playthrough. Haha, two build glitches exploitable for speed runners. Can you say replayability? I bet someone can beat this map in under 10 minutes...

[Micky C]

 Drek, on 27 February 2014 - 04:13 PM, said:

I got stuck there myself too. I used roids through a window to move ahead on my playthrough. Haha, two build glitches exploitable for speed runners. Can you say replayability? I bet someone can beat this map in under 10 minutes...

Oh, can you still do that?

[Danukem]

 MetHy, on 27 February 2014 - 11:59 AM, said:

Check the truck.
It's something you have to do used a lot in duke maps which comes from The Birth episode.

I can't find the shrinker.

[Micky C]

It's in the building in the water. There's a button in the building itself that unlocks a door, however that defeats the purpose since you need to be inside the building to press the button... or do you? Check the viewscreens.

Btw I've found 3 texture issues, if anyone finds any more, please let me know. Or if progression is too hard (e.g some people are having trouble finding the shrinker, so it might be worth putting in some extra cameras for the viewscreen.)
If I get enough issues, I might release a version 1.01 with fixes, but I'd rather release 1 update with "all" the fixes as opposed to lots of updates as new issues come up, like.... some people...

Also, if people could try it out in coop and let me know how that goes it'd be great. The checkpoint teleporters contain all the weapons you'd have collected up to that point, so you don't have to waste time running around the map to collect them again (but you'll still need the ammo).

[Danukem]

A high quality map. It flowed nicely once I found the shrinker. Had some brilliant touches, such as the sailboat. The big open beach area was a little annoying, especially because a few of the pigcops got behind barriers where they could shoot me but I could not hit them (even with rockets). But overall, the gameplay and design were very good. The map was crazy long, though. I prefer shorter maps.

[Micky C]

If you mean those waist-high barriers, that's strange since I can shoot through them just fine.

[Danukem]

 Micky C, on 27 February 2014 - 09:46 PM, said:

If you mean those waist-high barriers, that's strange since I can shoot through them just fine.

There seem to be one or two of them with their hitscan bits on, and if an enemy is pressed against them, they allow the enemy to fire out while using it as cover

I'm referring to an enemy who is standing at the editing coords pictured in mapster, not where the pigcops in the distance are.

Attached thumbnail(s)

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[Micky C]

Ah yeah, I put that there to discourage people from doing a little shortcut and jumping up onto the jetty instead of going all the way along the beach. You can still jump up there, but it's more difficult and may convince some people to give up after a failed first attempt. Most of the time enemies shouldn't wander behind there since most of the guys up there are stayput IIRC.

[Steambull]

I had problems with those very same sprites. That was one thing I thought I'd mention here but forgot about it. The pigs were shooting at me as well, and like Trooper Dan said, they couldn't be killed.

[Micky C]

Unless you're shooting at that exact space where the transparent green sprite is, I can kill them without problem ??

[Steambull]

 Micky C, on 28 February 2014 - 01:04 AM, said:

Unless you're shooting at that exact space where the transparent green sprite is, I can kill them without problem ??

My problem was that the railing sprites couldn't be shot through in the places where to pigs got stuck at.

[MetHy]

I forgot to mention, I was expecting to be able to get onto the boat and was disappointed not to be able to. At first I thought we'd have to wait for it to come at the end of wooden path above the beach (which would have been cool) but then I realized the boat was in another part behind a fence. At that point I still hoped we'd get onto it later on though, plus it seemed a pretty cool party was going on there which I didn't want to miss (I tried to shoot the girls on the boat with the rocker launcher but they were so far and the boat turns around so I missed).

Anyway - I knew progression, both the big button and the shrinker, would cause problem to some problems. I don't think it's justified though, both of these (shooting buttons + using the shrinker onto yourself) are not only done a FUCKTON in usermaps, but they were also both used in the original game. They shouldn't be a problem. Plus there are plenty of hints : the button being big itself + the text near it, the viewscreens, and the whole text on the truck gives the thing away. There is no way you could make progression easier apart from removing those 2 'puzzles' altogehter.

 Micky C, on 27 February 2014 - 10:36 PM, said:

Ah yeah, I put that there to discourage people from doing a little shortcut and jumping up onto the jetty instead of going all the way along the beach. You can still jump up there, but it's more difficult and may convince some people to give up after a failed first attempt. Most of the time enemies shouldn't wander behind there since most of the guys up there are stayput IIRC.

I was able to do that jump rather easily but, because the start of it is blocked, I knew i wasn't supposed do. I however I don't think it was a necessary block. It's a VERY small shortcut, not all players would use it and even if they do it's not big deal anyway (if they do take the shortcut they will have to explore the small skipped area a bit later on anyway) and apparently it can cause issues too... Also, on the contrary, that bit of freedom could have made things better.

[Danukem]

 MetHy, on 28 February 2014 - 06:25 AM, said:

Anyway - I knew progression, both the big button and the shrinker, would cause problem to some problems. I don't think it's justified though, both of these (shooting buttons + using the shrinker onto yourself) are not only done a FUCKTON in usermaps, but they were also both used in the original game. They shouldn't be a problem. Plus there are plenty of hints : the button being big itself + the text near it, the viewscreens, and the whole text on the truck gives the thing away. There is no way you could make progression easier apart from removing those 2 'puzzles' altogehter.

The puzzles are totally fair, and easy by Duke 3D standards. But if a map has tons of mindless action for a while, then I stop looking at viewscreens and kind of turn my brain off I didn't even look at the viewscreen with the big button (hilarious text for that one btw) until after I complained about getting stuck.

[LeoD]

An epic adventure, indeed. Big "Thank you!" to everyone who participated. Gameflow was very good for me, and I'd like to have visited that ship, too...