[Tea Monster]

I'm loving it so far. Coudln't find the last keycard in the second episode.

The dark level is way too dark. I had to screw with the gamma to be able to make out anything.

Then, when I got through to the open section, I dinked left while going to kill the two 'Suckitdown' monsters and suddenly the level ended!

Also, on the second level, If you click on the coke machine near the entrance, a switch sound is heard, I coudln't find anything that it had actually opened though.

Apart from those problems, it's a great release and gives a wonderful feel of what it was like to play the game in it's heyday.

[NightFright]

I only played until the fifth level until now. My findings so far:

1) Level 2 could really use a bit more ammo, especially in the outdoor area before the end. At least 1-2 well-placed shotgun rounds and maybe a box of chaingun ammo could make a huge difference there IMHO.
2) The dark fourth level is OK for me since there are no enemies until you find the light switch. I see where you are going with this, using monster sounds to scare the player and all that.
3) I have no clue why, but I had some crashes, once at the very beginning of the first level and then several after starting the fifth. Couldn't find out what caused it. At first I suspected the autoload folder since I am using OGG sound replacements from the PSX version of the game, but deactivating autoload folder didn't improve anything. Maybe it is because I was too stubborn to switch to classic renderer and tried to play with Polymer. Can't tell why that would crash the game without any error message, however. What was also weird was when I left the game and returned to load my last savegame, EDuke32 told me I had switched from 32-bit to 64-bit and wouldn't load. I swear I didn't touch the executable and also didn't add or remove any mods or whatsoever. If I am able to reproduce this reliably, I will let you know. Using r5466 64-bit, btw.

[Danukem]

NightFright, on 09 December 2015 - 12:59 AM, said:

Maybe it is because I was too stubborn to switch to classic renderer and tried to play with Polymer.

This. It didn't crash for me, but it quickly became unplayable and I switched back to Polymost. That's not surprising, since level 5 has a huge number of enemies shooting lit projectiles in a very large open area with red walls everywhere. It's like a worst-case scenario for the renderer.

[pmw]

Tea Monster, on 08 December 2015 - 01:58 PM, said:

I'm loving it so far. Coudln't find the last keycard in the second episode.

The dark level is way too dark. I had to screw with the gamma to be able to make out anything.

Then, when I got through to the open section, I dinked left while going to kill the two 'Suckitdown' monsters and suddenly the level ended!

Also, on the second level, If you click on the coke machine near the entrance, a switch sound is heard, I coudln't find anything that it had actually opened though.

Apart from those problems, it's a great release and gives a wonderful feel of what it was like to play the game in it's heyday.

Hmm..You mean you couldn't find third access card from the second map? If that so, there might me maps which doesn't contain all access cards.

Level ended, maybe you went to the tunnel(?), level ends there.

And about the coke machine, I don't remember what happens when you press that...but this episode has a lot of secret places, some are really difficult to find (that's why those are secret places), but every secret is possible to find. I've betatested this with multiple players with zero knowledge of these maps, and they were capable to find all secrets. So, if you want to find em all, reserve a lot of time and don't get frustrated

And thanks for playing.

NightFright, on 09 December 2015 - 12:59 AM, said:

I only played until the fifth level until now. My findings so far:

1) Level 2 could really use a bit more ammo, especially in the outdoor area before the end. At least 1-2 well-placed shotgun rounds and maybe a box of chaingun ammo could make a huge difference there IMHO.
2) The dark fourth level is OK for me since there are no enemies until you find the light switch. I see where you are going with this, using monster sounds to scare the player and all that.
3) I have no clue why, but I had some crashes, once at the very beginning of the first level and then several after starting the fifth. Couldn't find out what caused it. At first I suspected the autoload folder since I am using OGG sound replacements from the PSX version of the game, but deactivating autoload folder didn't improve anything. Maybe it is because I was too stubborn to switch to classic renderer and tried to play with Polymer. Can't tell why that would crash the game without any error message, however. What was also weird was when I left the game and returned to load my last savegame, EDuke32 told me I had switched from 32-bit to 64-bit and wouldn't load. I swear I didn't touch the executable and also didn't add or remove any mods or whatsoever. If I am able to reproduce this reliably, I will let you know. Using r5466 64-bit, btw.

Making ammo & enemies is really hard. People are so different, they have different playing style and different skills. And I'm bad making monsters. But the first thing for me is, it shouldn't be too easy, since new games are always too easy. But this is not that hard either. But you may need to use quick load.

I tried to improve level three....but I lost motivation with it, so I just kept it like that. It's ok for someone, but some people don't like it. Luckily, it is pretty short map.

And this 3) thing is new for me. I forgot to mention in the first post, use classic renderer. Duke is made for that, this episode is made for that. You can use other renderers too, but there's no warranty for those
Episode has never crashed with classic renderer, tested with multiple different computers. But, you can try to play it with Polymer etc, so we can hear is it possible or not.

[NightFright]

Well, I just played through PMW5 in Polymer without any issue whatsoever, even with dynamic lighting turned on. I was using r5466 32-bit (in Win7 x64) this time. Unfortunately, I cannot make a direct comparison with 64-bit since my machine here doesn't allow me to run that one for some reason. I will try again at home. My PC there is quite good actually, 16GB RAM, a GeForce 770, Win10 Home x64... no idea why I would have problems in Polymer with that equip.

*EDIT*
Just played through the secret level. Sweet jeez, you put some really nasty deathtraps there, man. Saving at the right time is a must if you want to make it through there alive. And then you even can't use the jetpack to bypass some brutal jump passages. What a pain! xD

[pmw]

NightFright, on 09 December 2015 - 05:21 AM, said:

*EDIT*
Just played through the secret level. Sweet jeez, you put some really nasty deathtraps there, man. Saving at the right time is a must if you want to make it through there alive. And then you even can't use the jetpack to bypass some brutal jump passages. What a pain! xD

This is glad to hear. I was afraid that nobody plays that map.

And yeeah, I think jetpack ruins most maps. Better to disable it. Even though that secret map is the only map where you can get a jetpack...

Anyway, updated versio downloadable. Fixed one corrupted sector @ final map and removed the boss scene animation.

[zykov eddy]

I'm stuck on secret level. Found a house with lots of laser bombs, blew them all up, don't know where to go next.

[NightFright]

It took me a while, too. Once you have blewn up the interior of the house, you...

Spoiler

... have to go into the corner which is surrounded by cones. Kneel down there and crawl around until you drop through the floor.

The secret level in general is really pretty difficult. I also wonder if there is enough time to legally survive the deathtrap in the labyrinth and later on with those coke vending machines. I admit I cheated there to get through faster.

About PMW7:
I see this map has 25 corruptions which you all put into a sector that cannot be accessed by the player. While this works fine for classic and Polymost, Polymer is more sensitive and will cause problems. I encountered such a case in a map that I fixed for the addon compilation. Unfortunately, when I deleted the corrupted walls, parts of the map vanished. I wouldn't mention this if I hadn't encountered rendering issues in PMW7 when using Polymer, for example in the pool area (the edges around the water are not rendered). I know you recommend software rendering for this addon, but maybe you can still check if you can do anything about it. Polymer may turn more tolerant regarding such issues in the future, but for now it's kinda unforgiving. Due to the complexity of that map however, it may be kinda hard to check which part of the map is affected if you get rid of those corrupted walls.

*EDIT*
I have attached an edited version of PMW8 (based on latest TamDuke release v1.3) where I minimally realigned walls of sector 1190 (slide door at the end of collapsing corridor before going outside to enter the sub) so that the bottom and ceiling of the doorframe render in Polymer. Functionality and visual appearance of the slide door remain unaffected. See the screenshot (showing fixed map). This fix is only relevant for Polymer users, the rest won't need it.

[FistMarine]

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[pmw]

There are some strange audiobugs... This enforcer sound and loading map sound. I haven't heard either one. Strange....
And I need to check out NightFright's bug reports some day when I have free time.

And FistMarine's report of level 3 bug, it's known. That happens when you have multiple sectors at same place.. I didn't manage to solve it, but it's so small bug that I didn't care. Old maps, old bugs, old mapper.
Maybe during weekend I have some time to fix stuff... But luckily you guys didn't find that much bugs. Like, compared to the timeline of this project...

Who finishes this episode first? NightFright is already probably playing map9?

[Jolteon]

NightFright, on 09 December 2015 - 11:18 AM, said:

The secret level in general is really pretty difficult. I also wonder if there is enough time to legally survive the deathtrap in the labyrinth and later on with those coke vending machines. I admit I cheated there to get through faster.

I've actually completed that level without cheating, but it did took me alot of save/load.

pmw, on 10 December 2015 - 11:55 AM, said:

Who finishes this episode first? NightFright is already probably playing map9?

I've already completed the whole thing, though I didn't mentioned it sooner. Either way the rest of the levels are pretty good as well. Again I like the cool designs in the levels (and of course the cars too). It's also kinda challenging near the end as well. I may replay it sometime later for it is very fun. I've taken more screenshots while playing.




Again thank you for this fun level pack. I've had a blast playing it.

[pmw]

Well that was quick. Good to hear about saving/loading, it means it's not too easy
Thanks for playing it. It seems that you liked toy scenes. I didn't even remember those first two shots... I spent too many years with this episode.

[NightFright]

I am now also done. Here is a quick recap.

Levels 1-4 can be finished quickly, you won't need more than 5-15mins for each of those. They are still nice but don't stick out as much as the rest.

With level 5, the episode actually really starts. This is one of the 45+ mins beasts you will remember later on. In PMW5, it really took me a while to figure out how to continue in the "Meat Market" building (code: "window --> vent") and later on jumping into that damned vent via those flags. I liked however how everything led you back to the streets and you had to figure out how to continue from there, it worked like a hub of some sort.

PMW6 was tricky because of its multi-level design, requiring you to change from one level to the other repeatedly. Maybe you had to pass that area with the vent hidden behind the "Exotica" poster a bit too often for my taste, but well. The trap at the end was nasty, especially since

Spoiler

that nukebutton room also holds part of the key to finding the secret level.

The secret level did something that not many authors dare: It doesn't just deliver yet another map, it tries to do things differently. In this case, quite dramatically. Some of the traps were maybe a bit too brutal, especially the collapsing labyrinth and the "aggressive" coke vending machines, but hey, if you wanna relax, go for a walk in the park. Also continuing past that tripwire-heavy house wasn't too obvious. Maybe some additional hint could have helped. I had tons of fun in that sunken city area, though. With those additional con-coded gibs, it's a massive rocket festival getting rid of all those mobs. Thumbs up for this crazy rollercoaster!

PMW7 was actually surprisingly straight forward compared to the previous entries and didn't take that much time.

PMW8 was probably my personal highlight. The scenario with the large water area and the shore immediately won me over. Keycards also aren't THAT hard to find in this one compared to some other maps. However, everything pales in comparison to the massive and quite brutal finale, with you having to face hundreds of enemies and all bosses at the same time. I think I have rarely seen a similar slaughter in any Duke map I have played for a long time. Tons of fun to be had here.

PMW9 offered a shopping mall scenario. All the stores are nicely done and show a good sense for details. The ending was a bit anticlimactic however, just getting into the car and that's it. If it had been up to me, I would have actually switched PMW8 and PMW9 to have an action-packed finale at the end. But well, that's my personal preference.

Verdict: While I am not a fan of long maps in general (I think 20-30mins are optimal), TamDuke managed to keep me playing anyway. It has creative environments, clever and plentiful secrets, tons of action and supports exploration. Maybe at some spots a few more hints about how to continue would have helped, but maybe one should see that as part of the challenge to play these maps. I enjoyed them a lot and can recommend this to anyone who brings a bit of patience to the table. You won't be disappointed!


PS: And yeah, that Enforcer sound in the menu should get fixed. Really gets annoying after a while, man... xD I am sure it's something in pmw.con since you didn't add any custom sounds. In pmwuser.con, I don't know why you defined a third entry for music 0. More than two MIDIs are not possible (second one is always used for ep.4 intro), and in your case you actually only need the first (title) since you are not even using any episode slot besides #1. You may want to consider removing that needless MIDI entry.

[Tea Monster]

I love the battles in Viitoku (sp?). Going hog-wild with the rocket launcher in the plaza was just glorious. I hit a liztrooper with an RPG - there were so many gibs in the air - it was like Oscar Myer exploded.

[Tea Monster]

double post

[NightFright]

BTW, you can also definitely remove the needless ifspritepal 0 lines in the three boss dying states which generate warnings in EDuke32 as mentioned here. If you remove an enofgame 52 line, you also need to eliminate the one before that since both belong together.

I have killed all three bosses in PMW8 with those lines disabled/commented out and there were no problems (episode didn't end prematurely, you still had to reach the exit tunnel).

[FistMarine]

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[Tea Monster]

Thank you!

[DNSKILL5]

This is a lot of fun! I'll give a review once I beat it.

[FistMarine]

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[pmw]

You need to visit Meat Market before the S.P.C.H. building. Next to Meat market, you can see the wooden door (I think you have been there?). Right behind the wooden door, there is an elevator. That's the right way.
And if you are completely stuck, you can always look at the walkthrough video..just be careful with it, it can easily ruin your gameplay if you watch it too much.

[FistMarine]

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[pmw]

NightFright, on 10 December 2015 - 02:51 PM, said:

I am now also done. Here is a quick recap.

This was pretty accurate what I did expect. I was thinking about flipping maps 8 and 9, but blah. I think it was OK like that. You can clearly see how 9 is easily the best detailed map -- since it was made last.
And those sounds problems..just wtf.. I laughed my ass off, I didn't wait for those. I didn't even realise there are problems like that. That CON file is probably 10 years old. I've just made some modifications there. This has been so long journey, that I can't remember half of it. I'm not sure do I even remember all secret places.

And just FYI...Map9 is not a shopping centre, it's actually railroad station. You can hear the trains passing by. There are tunnels going under railroads, you can see stairs going up there. I almost made the railroads above the whole building, like it is in real life.. however, I lost my motivation and also hit the wall limit. Maybe in addonpack then.....

Spoiler

Btw, here's a pretty cool panorama page of PMW9's lobby: http://www.360hostin...asemat/tampere/

[FistMarine]

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[pmw]

Good spotting with those vents.

One trash bin on the street includes an access card.

[FistMarine]

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[FistMarine]

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[pmw]

Oh. Go under the coke machine, where you can see that blood stuff, it aint easy map!

And.. I forgot to record secret level while making a walkthrough video..

[FistMarine]

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[pmw]

There's a teleport under the coke macine.

And yes, I think it's pretty OK like that. If you can find secret level, you probably can finish it too.
It's not really *that* difficult, just keep digging every place if you are stuck somewhere.