[PsychoGoatee]

My first map, it's short simple linear shooty stuff, rough around the edges, not a lot of lighting or decor stuff going on etc. But like Megatron said in '86, it still functions! This may be the least impressive Duke map you've played. But, it may be the best damn Duke map released this Thursday morning / Wednesday night! Yessir.

I had fun with it, and I think it's a fun little romp, even though it's nothing new. Maybe this will lower the bar a bit, and we'll see more maps from more posters. What's new about it is that I made it, and now it exists. Also Duke talks a lot in this one, amusing stuff. And hit F5 for me to make the music streets.mid or another fav of yours. Enjoy!

Mondo thanks to all the forum posters who helped me with numerous technical newbie questions.








(Btw, If it says you found 3 of 4 secrets, that's all of them. A goof, there's one secret so secret even I don't know where it is.)

[MAP UPDATE:]

Just attached a little update to the map, just a bit more ammo, and a bonus potted plant and table. The updated version is the one with the apostrophe in the title and .10kb bigger zip. Technically the original version could be considered a slightly harder option, so I'll leave that up too.

Attached File(s)

•  MyNamesDukeNukem.zip (22.09K)
  Number of downloads: 154
•  MyName'sDukeNukem.zip (22.19K)
  Number of downloads: 200

[Lunick]

I really like the humor you put into the level but it's not too visually pleasing to look at and I expect some other posters here to describe how you could improve it.

It's better than anything I could make though

[PsychoGoatee]

Lunick, on 30 September 2015 - 10:20 PM, said:

I really like the humor you put into the level but it's not too visually pleasing to look at and I expect some other posters here to describe how you could improve it.

It's better than anything I could make though

Thank you for playing it! It's amazing that we have a scene here where somebody played this level I made right when I posted it.

[Lunick]

It's because I live in a stupid timezone

[The Mechanic]

Had a bash - got to the end carrying only 2 pipebombs and no other ammo 150% health tho

Does need to be a bit more visually interesting, but then again if you try and cover every aspect of mapping in map number 1 (lighting, detailing, spritework, effects, even TROR if you are an extreme masochist bordering on insanity ) then there will never be a map 1 ! For me, the enemy placement/spawning worked and I enjoyed kicking some more butt and (being a bit OCD) I don't recall seeing any misaligned textures (disclaimer: couldn't be arsed to go upstairs and get me specs before playing).

For me personally there is only one thing I would class as wrong; There is barely enough ammo even when finding the secrets so that must mean the game cannot be completed without finding these secrets. You should be able to complete a map without secrets, they should just make your life easier. Getting to the end of a map with nearly zero ammo (without resorting to excessive boot usage which just makes for slow gameplay) could be seen as judging the amount of ammo provided in a map as being exactly right, it's just that you needed the secrets to achieve it.

I know you've also had to battle with a system where your keyboard isn't exactly 100% co-operative, pereverence has paid off. Have to ask though, does [ctrl] + [del] work ?

(f/x: sound of fingers drumming on the table) OK, when's map 2 ?

TTFN,
Jon

[zykov eddy]

Are you trying to repeat the incredible success of A really, really wrong map?

[Hendricks266]

zykov eddy, on 01 October 2015 - 02:50 AM, said:

Are you trying to repeat the incredible success of A really, really wrong map?

>advertises own map in someone else's map thread

[brullov]

Hendricks266, on 01 October 2015 - 08:07 AM, said:

>advertises own map in someone else's map thread

Duke4 community's marketing.

[The Mechanic]

Wonder if Zykov Eddy will let slip how much he had to pay AdBlocker to get whitelisted ?

TTFN,
Jon

[PsychoGoatee]

The Mechanic, on 01 October 2015 - 12:59 AM, said:

Had a bash - got to the end carrying only 2 pipebombs and no other ammo 150% health tho

Does need to be a bit more visually interesting, but then again if you try and cover every aspect of mapping in map number 1 (lighting, detailing, spritework, effects, even TROR if you are an extreme masochist bordering on insanity ) then there will never be a map 1 ! For me, the enemy placement/spawning worked and I enjoyed kicking some more butt and (being a bit OCD) I don't recall seeing any misaligned textures (disclaimer: couldn't be arsed to go upstairs and get me specs before playing).

For me personally there is only one thing I would class as wrong; There is barely enough ammo even when finding the secrets so that must mean the game cannot be completed without finding these secrets. You should be able to complete a map without secrets, they should just make your life easier. Getting to the end of a map with nearly zero ammo (without resorting to excessive boot usage which just makes for slow gameplay) could be seen as judging the amount of ammo provided in a map as being exactly right, it's just that you needed the secrets to achieve it.

I know you've also had to battle with a system where your keyboard isn't exactly 100% co-operative, pereverence has paid off. Have to ask though, does [ctrl] + [del] work ?

(f/x: sound of fingers drumming on the table) OK, when's map 2 ?

TTFN,
Jon

Thanks! Yep ctrl + del works, only the alt key stuff had issues until rebinding it. I agree on the secrets philosophy bit, good point there. Random note, I actually forgot the Duke burger happy meal has an atomic health in it until after I put it there, so that's a funny thing. Been a while since I ran into that meal on a user map. Fun detail there.

zykov eddy, on 01 October 2015 - 02:50 AM, said:

Are you trying to repeat the incredible success of A really, really wrong map?

Here's what I think of the rules . If saying My Name's Duke Nukem a lot is wrong, I don't wanna be right. I hope this one liner catches on, easily his most underused one liner. It's just great out of context.

After some R&R, maybe I'll make a better less ancient looking map.

[The Mechanic]

PsychoGoatee, on 01 October 2015 - 01:04 PM, said:

Here's what I think of the rules .

Good grief I am out of touch; I didn't realise Iron Maiden had changed the name of their band

PsychoGoatee, on 01 October 2015 - 01:04 PM, said:

If saying My Name's Duke Nukem a lot is wrong, I don't wanna be right.

When to play Duke sounds I guess is a personal thing; a few distributed throughout a map is OK but in your map there seemed initially a lot of them.Where Duke sounds do help is in guiding a player, for example "I think I'll climb aboard". Whatever, at least it wasn't "Its time to kick ass and chew bubblegum". Honestly, if one more map starts with that one I swear I'll ... I'll ... arggghhhh!



TTFN,
Jon

[PsychoGoatee]

The Mechanic, on 01 October 2015 - 03:00 PM, said:

Good grief I am out of touch; I didn't realise Iron Maiden had changed the name of their band



When to play Duke sounds I guess is a personal thing; a few distributed throughout a map is OK but in your map there seemed initially a lot of them.Where Duke sounds do help is in guiding a player, for example "I think I'll climb aboard". Whatever, at least it wasn't "Its time to kick ass and chew bubblegum". Honestly, if one more map starts with that one I swear I'll ... I'll ... arggghhhh![/img]


TTFN,
Jon

I saved the bubblegum line for the last alley in the map, so I'm totally mixing things up.


[MAP UPDATE:]

Just attached a little update to the map, just a bit more ammo, and a bonus potted plant and table. The updated version is the one with the apostrophe in the title and .10kb bigger zip. Technically the original version could be considered a slightly harder option, so I'll leave that up too.


It's up on Steam workshop too, in case anybody on here is a Megaton player. Didn't need to make any changes, plays fine on there too.

Map on Steam Workshop

[Never Forgotten]

Decent map, could use improvement, but who am I to judge? Look at my first map. :3 Anyway, I found a really weird secret, if you go into mapster you can discover a whole underground secret, it's an almost exact copy of the map, but it's almost all the first tile. My guess is it counts one of the secrets in the underground are as well. To find it all you have to do is look around until you see a spot on the ground where there's that tile, then move over it and go into 3D mode.

[PsychoGoatee]

Never Forgotten, on 01 October 2015 - 09:23 PM, said:

Decent map, could use improvement, but who am I to judge? Look at my first map. :3 Anyway, I found a really weird secret, if you go into mapster you can discover a whole underground secret, it's an almost exact copy of the map, but it's almost all the first tile. My guess is it counts one of the secrets in the underground are as well. To find it all you have to do is look around until you see a spot on the ground where there's that tile, then move over it and go into 3D mode.

That was one of the numerous weird things that happened along the way making this map. I seemed to make mapster explode and do weird things pretty often.


By the way folks, if you want a fun extra challenge, try this in DukePlus! I just did and those blue Overlords I threw in for fun who die in one hit, they're fully tough badass minibosses in that version. And I think the red palette enemies may have more health in that version, I forget. Spawn firstgunsprite to get a akimbo pistols to even the odds.

[The Mechanic]

Never Forgotten, on 01 October 2015 - 09:23 PM, said:

Anyway, I found a really weird secret, if you go into mapster you can discover a whole underground secret, it's an almost exact copy of the map, but it's almost all the first tile.

Wow, so it wasn't just me ? I did notice a situation in mapster where everythig turned uglybrick, after a few seconds of moving everthing became correctly tiled. I assumed it was just a glitch on my particular machine. Anyhow, something to investigate, imaging making a map tiled one way that then switches to another, could be used to good effect.

[The Mechanic]

(D'oh ! Its gonna be one of those days, pressed [Add Reply] instead of browse for pictures. Don't mock, one day you too will get old)

Where was I ? Oh yes, I remebered roughly where it happened for me, screenshot attached. It is due to a funny sector that isn't inside the sector you think it is. Second image shows location in map - I enlarged the sector slightly to help me get Dukes fat arse into that sector and also examine the sector info. Normally this white sector would have no effect, however it is sector 121 and the sector it was inside of was also 121, something that should not be possible (unless it's something you can do in expert mode). They should have different sector numbers.

PsychoGoatee,don't suppose you can recal how you made that sector ? I've tried a few ways to fool Mapster without success.

TTFN,
Jon

Attached thumbnail(s)

• 
• 

[PsychoGoatee]

There was another topic in the support forum about how that part of the map was being wacky. The little sector there I just made as usual by making a square, for a touchplate, and it works as intended, despite the weirdness in mapster. The suggested explanation was that section was being weird because I created it inside of a giant nesting sector, which I later deleted as suggested, etc. I also copied and pasted the whole map at one point as also suggested, so maybe that's how I ended up with a "phantom" copy of stuff undeath it or something like that.

All I know is, no matter how odd it may look in mapster, the map works and didn't explode, so I'm satisfied.

[The Mechanic]

PsychoGoatee, on 02 October 2015 - 01:36 AM, said:

There was another topic in the support forum about how that part of the map was being wacky.

I've just answered in that thread in case someone else hits the same issue and is looking for an answer. Anyhow, I was right, you had overlapping identically sized sectors, 2D mode was drawing in one sector, 3D mode was viewing in another, hence not seeming to work. Still intrigued by the two sector 250's though.

PsychoGoatee, on 02 October 2015 - 01:36 AM, said:

All I know is, no matter how odd it may look in mapster, the map works and didn't explode, so I'm satisfied.

And I've had more fun in mapster than I had in the game

TTFN,
Jon

[PsychoGoatee]

The Mechanic, on 02 October 2015 - 01:55 AM, said:

And I've had more fun in mapster than I had in the game

TTFN,
Jon

While you're in there, fix the map up for me would ya? Maybe add some ornate decorations and whatnot?

[LeoD]

Welcome, new mapper!

The Mechanic, on 01 October 2015 - 12:59 AM, said:

Had a bash - got to the end carrying only 2 pipebombs and no other ammo 150% health tho

Found no secrets and ended up with zero ammo and three baddies after me, but I reached the nukebutton with 10% health.

PsychoGoatee, on 01 October 2015 - 09:31 PM, said:

By the way folks, if you want a fun extra challenge, try this in DukePlus! I just did and those blue Overlords I threw in for fun who die in one hit, they're fully tough badass minibosses in that version

Ah, that's why it was so tough ... I almost always use DukePlus ...

[Sixty Four]

Hey the map is okay for a first map as I am guessing you learned how to structure somethings and have a better understanding. But the map isn't appealing at all not trying to sound harsh but i see alot of areas need help. Try switching to more textures and add some shading. Look at the areas you create from all angles. I don't mean to discourage though I am sure if you made more you could be better. Nice to see some new peoples mapping keep it up

[Jan Satcitananda]

As a rule of thumb, never release your first map =P
Nonetheless, looks promising. Note that the secrets shouldn't be mandatory to find (no keycards and other important stuff there). However, mostly the map suffers from overscaling and random layout (the rooms are twice as big as they should). If you work out these issues in your later maps, you're definitely going to make a decent level.

[PsychoGoatee]

CraigFatman, on 14 October 2015 - 05:54 PM, said:

As a rule of thumb, never release your first map =P
Nonetheless, looks promising. Note that the secrets shouldn't be mandatory to find (no keycards and other important stuff there). However, mostly the map suffers from overscaling and random layout (the rooms are twice as big as they should). If you work out these issues in your later maps, you're definitely going to make a decent level.

I generally agree with no mandatory secrets. Ironically, I made a topic complaining about mandatory secrets in Doom maps before. I figured since it was when the map was just two tiny empty-ish rooms, and Duke 3D does have you going behind a poster in the prison level, seemed like it could work.

The scale I concur on for sure though, it is always interesting making something then testing it and seeing how big or small it is. Though that also is a little subjective for relatively lo-fi games like this I think. I often find rooms kind of short in Duke and Doom for example, I prefer them on the tall side I guess.

[Sixty Four]

When I started out mapping I would put a Duke spawn sprite and adjust his size to 36x36. This is a pretty accurate size of Duke. It helps to get door sizes and other stuff right just place one nearby. In your case if you like it to be a bit larger scaled try doing 38x38 or even 39x39

[The Mechanic]

PsychoGoatee, on 14 October 2015 - 07:13 PM, said:

The scale I concur on for sure though, it is always interesting making something then testing it and seeing how big or small it is. Though that also is a little subjective for relatively lo-fi games like this I think. I often find rooms kind of short in Duke and Doom for example, I prefer them on the tall side I guess.

Must admit I too sometimes find rooms just a bit on the small and fiddly size.

Pays to disect one of the original Duke maps to get an idea of scales. Duke needs 11 height units minimum (without ducking) so I find a door height of 14-16 works. With that set, add door texture, adjust so aspect ratio is right and behold you get a suitable door width. Add, say, 4 more height units and you get the ceiling height as you probably want gap between top of door an ceiling.

This at least gives a starting point from which you can decide what scale you want. Dont forget this page in the info suite which guves some useful dimensions.

TTFN,
Jon

[Micky C]

You're all overthinking it.

Just press caps lock a few times until the mode is switched to "gravity", then mapster places the camera at Duke's height above the floor, allowing you to see the room from the players perspective.

[PsychoGoatee]

Micky C, on 15 October 2015 - 01:48 PM, said:

You're all overthinking it.

Just press caps lock a few times until the mode is switched to "gravity", then mapster places the camera at Duke's height above the floor, allowing you to see the room from the players perspective.

I've used gravity mode, that does help. But I guess there's more to perceiving scale correctly, or making it more like the scale of the 3DR levels. Since I guess I look at it differently than some other players when building it.

[The Mechanic]

Micky C, on 15 October 2015 - 01:48 PM, said:

You're all overthinking it.

Just press caps lock a few times until the mode is switched to "gravity", then mapster places the camera at Duke's height above the floor, allowing you to see the room from the players perspective.

When not using TROR I'm usually in gravity mode, but initially I still found it difficult to judge scale.

It's a bit like photography; no, really, there are various guidlines, inexperienced people might not know them and their work suffers - whilst the experienced know them and break them for secific reason(s). Need to start somewhere though.

So, if I had to make a guidline, normal doors are 16 high, ceilings 20 high. Then break the (rather arbitary) guidline 'cos you have a reason to, not because you are not sure what scale to use. With a few maps under your belt it all becomes a lot easier ... I hope.

TTFN,
Jon

[PsychoGoatee]

The Mechanic, on 15 October 2015 - 03:16 PM, said:

With a few maps under your belt it all becomes a lot easier ... I hope.

TTFN,
Jon

Speaking of a few maps, have you released any I could play? I've played maps by several people who posted in this topic for the record. No pressure.


Random side-note, I disagree with the opinion "never post your first map" I see around sometimes. In general, I'd love to see more maps get posted. If they don't compare to the masters, that's fine, more maps released is just a good thing in my book. People who aren't into more newbie-ish maps can read the OP and skip it if they like. The standards set are pretty high, for Doom maps as well. I'd love to romp around in some unpolished maps people have lying around.

[The Mechanic]

PsychoGoatee, on 15 October 2015 - 04:03 PM, said:

Speaking of a few maps, have you released any I could play? I've played maps by several people who posted in this topic for the record. No pressure.

Ah, calling my bluff, heh ?

Well, I only ever released two maps - and given I uploaded them to my local BBS (Rowley Rag) at 2400 baud that'll tell you how long ago it was. I have searched my backups but they are probably long gone. However one of them will live on as one aspect of one of those maps is in one of the new maps I've started (actually I've started the map dozens of times, TROR is very frustrating at times). Thing is, I suck at the gameplay side (which is 75% of Duke) and as for visuals the bar has been set way higher than I'll achieve. But I have fun working out how to create maps, effects, creating a CON library and cursing the often incomprehensable source code.

PsychoGoatee, on 15 October 2015 - 04:03 PM, said:

Random side-note, I disagree with the opinion "never post your first map" I see around sometimes. In general, I'd love to see more maps get posted. If they don't compare to the masters, that's fine, more maps released is just a good thing in my book. People who aren't into more newbie-ish maps can read the OP and skip it if they like. The standards set are pretty high, for Doom maps as well. I'd love to romp around in some unpolished maps people have lying around.

I can see your point, especially having now played some old maps. Sure, many sucked full stop but there were a few that despite visual appearance were jolly good fun.

TTFN,
Jon