[FistMarine]

I just had two Duke3D related dreams in last two nights.

In first dream, there were two parts one after the other. In one part I was talking to a former college classmate (since I just graduated Master last July, BTW as far as I know he doesn't actually play old school games but I showed him once pictures of Duke3D on Google back in 2017-2018 or so) when he showed me he actually found Duke Nukem 3D Megaton Edition in retail stores for cheap and it also came with trading cards of Duke Nukem 3D Megaton Edition logo and gold foiled or something like that, very cool looking.

Then I remember talking about the expansions (DC, Caribbean, NW) and mentioning the fact that I prefer playing them in DOSBox for the original experience (this is actually true, in reality I prefer to play official Duke content in DOSBox, as of lately I also started playing 90s/early 2000s user content in DOSBox) and he was confused for a while. Just to note, Megaton doesn't allow you to play the expansions in DOSBox, it's only the (rather poorly configured) DOS Atomic Edition that is included as bonus alongside the port, though I always found that a bit pointless considering that most people would just play the Megaton port and for me there is no point in playing poorly configured DOSBox wrapped digital games (in general they are setup very poorly, as has been the case with old id software releases on Steam) when I already own original Duke3D (Both 1.3D and 1.5 on Kill a Ton CD, I also have a separate Plutonium Pak CD that I use for v1.4 for very few mods to watch their demos that don't play in 1.5), I only play the original DOS releases (installed from CDs) in DOSBox since they run very well at default settings, compared to how slow and glitchy Megaton classic atomic ran when I tried a few years ago (though I think GOG version of Atomic may have run fine, was much better configured).

OK back to the dream, the second part was more interesting. There was a new map release at Duke4.net that showed a lot of new mapping tricks (I think the author of map may have been Oasiz?) and the 5 or so comments were from new/odd accounts that I have never seen before (one of them was using two different accounts for some reason, as he/she admitted when made a new post from the other account). One of those replies showed a gameplay video of the map played in EDuke32 with the God Mode cheat and trying to speedrun it. The map was a bit giant-sized (as if Duke was shrunk and placed in a plant dome or something like that) and there were new effects like Duke could change size stepping on a certain sector (at same time it also eliminated the hardcoded fists that appear when you are shrunk, so you can now jump and use your weapons when shrunk), the laser trip mine was coded to be attached on any surface (or just the laser without the trip mine) and have the laser beam instant killing the player upon touching it (instead of just exploding) and it was also rotating effect like a rotating sector with the effect being like a laser wave instead of straight line of the original trip mine. Then in the "speedrun" video, player was clipping/glitching through the glass sectors by jumping and crouching when landing to reach outside the dome and the nuke button to finish the map. I think Duke was also growing bigger during the last few seconds, so basically it was a timed mission and if you didn't reach the nuke button, Duke would expand inside dome and die. The map didn't have any enemies placed (outside of maybe a few slimers) and also no weapons/items, it was more like a test map but an impressive one nonetheless.

That's all I remember from the first dream. Funnily enough, the day before I was looking at some Duke Nukem videos on YouTube and one was a more recent Megaton speedrun (though it also showed SW and Blood speedruns), which explains parts of the dream I just had.

Last night I had yet another Duke3D related dream (with a bit of Heretic as well). I remember playing some E3 levels from the original Duke3D in 1.3D in DOSBox and they all looked a lot more different than I remembered, instead of being city themed, they were more like canyon themed. I remember one of levels having a starry sky (similar to Death Row) and one of areas looking similar to the beginning of Toxic Dump (the beginning part after you resurface from the crashed submarine) and there were randomized ceiling lights on the sky (???) that sometimes spawned at map start and other times they didn't, it's like the levels were slightly different each time you replayed the map. I also wanted to destroy all those lamps with the pistol because I thought it would trigger an Easter Egg, an unique developer message or something. I don't remember other details about this one, sadly.

The second part of the dream was about Heretic. I dreamed that Croteam (the developers of Serious Sam series) had released a remastered version of Heretic on steam, very similarly to the recent Unity Doom ports that were released on steam as a free bonus to those who own the Doom games on steam (sadly this isn't my case as I don't own any id software game digitally other than the Quake games I got in summer for free when they were given away, except there was no benefit considering I already own legal copies of Quake games in physical form).
I also found out in my city they were hosting a Heretic tournament or simply a gaming room where we could try the game for free or watch others play. As I already have Heretic (original CD) and play at home, I chose to watch others play.

I watched some random teens playing and saw a few interesting differences at this specific Heretic version. The port seemed to be based off an early ZDoom version which had complete Heretic support and with still somewhat vanilla feeling. The funny thing is that the levels looked a lot different, mostly icy themed (the actual ice textures were from Hexen, since they were light blue, unlike the ice textures from Heretic that are dark blue), thinking the levels were from Carnage Galore mod (an old Heretic episode replacement, not the Hexen mod of same name by same author) or Masters of Chaos (a Heretic ZDoom megawad released years ago). It made me question if they loaded a PWAD by accident but anyway the menus were slightly different looking too. When starting a new game, it showed a lot different skill levels (and assorted like newer ZDoom versions do when you select a class from a long list of classes), about 7 skill levels. They played at third one named "Ichor" (which is funny considering the author of Carnage Galore wads is named "Ichor"). However when they saved the game, it was just plain vanilla save game menu (instead of the ZDoom saving menu), with added "SAVING" pop-up box from Hexen. Additionally, there were also ACS scripts from Hexen added as well. I remember one time some traps that fired projectiles (one was the egg) and turned the player into a chicken and they were confused and they started wondering what exactly happened but yeah I was also surprised at that, since normally in Heretic single player you can't become chicken and the ice themed level made me think if they replaced the original levels or maybe added a new official expansion that was enabled by default?

Other than that, I don't remember other details. I will admit that I'm all in for Heretic & Hexen games getting remastered in same way the Doom games got remastered and I also think of the first Quake getting remastered as well one day.

[jkas789]

Fuck it, why not. Had a dream of Duke doing weird contrived shit to save the babes instead of killing them all (as we always do accidently in gameplay). I'm talking jumping over hoops of fire, getting shot, getting eñectrocuted, having a pipe bomb blow up in his face. Lots of whacky stuff. I remember that in that one room where there is like a overlord and full of octabrains and babes Duke is ricochetting around the room pulling out this Matrix moves. Saving the a babe at the same time he chucks a pipe bomb into a octabrain's mouth ala Doom Eternal.

I don't know if you guys have seen this warner brothers cartoon where this dog takes care of a kitten while suffering extremely for it? Well something along those lines, but with Duke saving the babes. Come to think about it, it would be a interesting to be able to save the babes like in Duke 64 but in proper Duke 3D. I remember talking to Hendricks about it and him saying it was possible. Hmm... now there is a fun mod idea...

[Ninety-Six]

RunningDuke, on 06 December 2020 - 08:44 AM, said:

I remember playing some E3 levels from the original Duke3D in 1.3D in DOSBox and they all looked a lot more different than I remembered, instead of being city themed, they were more like canyon themed. I remember one of levels having a starry sky (similar to Death Row) and one of areas looking similar to the beginning of Toxic Dump (the beginning part after you resurface from the crashed submarine) and there were randomized ceiling lights on the sky (???) that sometimes spawned at map start and other times they didn't, it's like the levels were slightly different each time you replayed the map. I also wanted to destroy all those lamps with the pistol because I thought it would trigger an Easter Egg, an unique developer message or something. I don't remember other details about this one, sadly.

Reminds me a little bit of Anarchy Village, being a weird urban/canyon mix theme itself. Fittingly I always thought the episode felt rather dreamlike due to both that combination and how bizarrely bright it was despite using said starry sky.

jkas789, on 06 December 2020 - 05:06 PM, said:

Fuck it, why not. Had a dream of Duke doing weird contrived shit to save the babes instead of killing them all (as we always do accidently in gameplay). I'm talking jumping over hoops of fire, getting shot, getting eñectrocuted, having a pipe bomb blow up in his face. Lots of whacky stuff. I remember that in that one room where there is like a overlord and full of octabrains and babes Duke is ricochetting around the room pulling out this Matrix moves. Saving the a babe at the same time he chucks a pipe bomb into a octabrain's mouth ala Doom Eternal.

I don't know if you guys have seen this warner brothers cartoon where this dog takes care of a kitten while suffering extremely for it? Well something along those lines, but with Duke saving the babes. Come to think about it, it would be a interesting to be able to save the babes like in Duke 64 but in proper Duke 3D. I remember talking to Hendricks about it and him saying it was possible. Hmm... now there is a fun mod idea...

The idea of saving babes in increasingly elaborate ways sounds legit like a fun game idea.

[jkas789]

I would make for a great extra challenge to the game. I think we all are so used to using explosives in Duke 3D that we have never had the time to care about not killing the trapped babes.

[Ninety-Six]

jkas789, on 07 December 2020 - 08:52 AM, said:

I would make for a great extra challenge to the game. I think we all are so used to using explosives in Duke 3D that we have never had the time to care about not killing the trapped babes.

To be fair, that's usually because the trapped babes tend to be located near egg hatcheries. Explosives are just the most effective means to stop them from all hatching and being annoying. Especially since in most user maps there is no punishment for doing so unlike the base game. And since we normally can't do anything to help them, there isn't much of a point in worrying about them. They just end up becoming grim decorations at that point.

[ck3D]

^ There is this Civvie video where he actually tries to 'save' all the babes in the safe in Bank Roll, which proves to be tricky as heck because of the Battlelords spawning just opposite to you in the room with the babes in the crossfire; if my memory serves me right, it took him a good dozen attempts to succeed. Still though, that's a 'game' he chose to play by himself and not an objective that was put on him so I thought that was pretty cool. About making it an actual game mechanism, I'm not sure - I liked Duke 64 but the inclusion of such a possibility in there probably had more to do with Nintendo wanting the babes to be impossible to kill (or strip) and requiring to either jettison them or turn their 'use' into something 'positive' (although I'm not certain humans disappearing into thin air is that positive in the end). I'm sure a Duke 3D user map could be articulated around the general concept though, without even needing .con hacks, for instance just have each individual babe trigger an almost impossible to survive firefight if they're killed - or maybe smarter, one that would use up at least ten minutes of gameplay and/or a crucial part of the player's ammo. I probably wouldn't make such a map myself, but the possibilities are there.

[Ninety-Six]

How many aliens are allowed to be triggered by a babe death? In the base game I've only ever seen it be one per but I'm not sure if that's a limitation or a conscious decision by Blum and Levelord. If it can spawn as many as a regular spawner, about fifteen battlelords should do it.


Though if it's a nest with a lot of babes, there might be the concern of them gunning down the other babes and thus spawning in 15 more... and then further...

Long after you're dead of course I just wonder how long it would be before the game starts crying.

[Aleks]

Babes can spawn as many objects as possible and in any part of the map (i.e. not like trashcans, which just spawn an item at their own coordinates), as long as they are "triggered", so after they "see" the player. This could be used in a more elegant puzzles I think - i.e. killing a babe would spawn a "dummy" object that would block the path of a shooter/target thing, thus making it impossible for some effect to trigger. Then players should be able to "save" the babes somehow, like pressing use on them with a hidden activating switch that would turn alien-infested babes into one of the ordinary strippers (thinking rising floor at blink of an eye speed here) as well as opening some further progression for the player.

[Ninety-Six]

That sounds super neat actually.

[jkas789]

Aleks, on 08 December 2020 - 06:07 AM, said:

Babes can spawn as many objects as possible and in any part of the map (i.e. not like trashcans, which just spawn an item at their own coordinates), as long as they are "triggered", so after they "see" the player. This could be used in a more elegant puzzles I think - i.e. killing a babe would spawn a "dummy" object that would block the path of a shooter/target thing, thus making it impossible for some effect to trigger. Then players should be able to "save" the babes somehow, like pressing use on them with a hidden activating switch that would turn alien-infested babes into one of the ordinary strippers (thinking rising floor at blink of an eye speed here) as well as opening some further progression for the player.

Holy shit that sounds great actually.

[Ninety-Six]

I had one which I sadly can't remember much of. The only part I remember is a nightclub (in Duke 3D? well i never) which seemed to have been based on my one of my old high school biology classrooms, except it had a stage, sprite tables, was made of stock duke 3D assets, and had an EDF Security monitor on the left wall with one of those fancy reflective screens. I really only remember this room and not much else. Something about heading "backstage" and killing more aliens I think.

There was also one from the other day related to Last Reaction & Water Bases but I remember literally nothing besides that lone fact.


Seeing as both of these were a total bust, I suppose now is as good a time as any to pull one from the archives:



This one comes from sometime last year. Summer, I think. And while it doesn't start as Duke-related it does eventually become so.


The dream begins at the front entrance to a haunted mansion (actually past the entrance but we'll get to that), on a deserted island in the middle of the ocean. This was not of the "rumored" to be haunted either; this was of the "people have actually been murdered in here by rampaging ghosts" type of haunted. The type that would probably require a military garrison out front but alas there was no such thing here in dreamland. Because apparently I was feeling suicidally levels of stupid, I decided to hang out in this house. Naturally the front door disappeared the moment I wandered past the threshold, and this is the point where the dream begins, the rest of the above information being things I just already knew.

So I'm standing in the middle of this dark entry hall, intensely aware that if I do not leave this place I will die. All the spirits in this house, true to what was told, want to butcher anyone that enters. That person was now me, so there was an entire conglomerate of evil spectral things that wanted my head and the door had just vanished into the ether. Funny part is I think I was even aware of the possibility of the door pulling a houdini but decided this made a great idea anyway.


Like I said. Suicidal levels of stupid. If there was ever a moment in my nightmares where I deserved to die, it was probably this one.


Everything within this hall was made of these thin strips of skin-colored wood (white people skin, that is. Sorry, my dreams are racist against wood people). The floors, walls, stairs, railing, even the picture frames and the pictures within were made of these planks that only ever continued onto the next contour like it wasn't there. It's actually rather disturbing now that I think on it; just these hundreds of flesh-colored embossed planks that only took on the shape of a hallway.

That aside, it was a rather spartan hallway. Besides the picture frames there wasn't much else to it. It was a small narrow hallway, with stairs on the right going parallel to an invisible second floor, and what I believe was a kitchen on the left (still made out of that same fleshwood). For some reason, I knew that the hallway(s) were the most dangerous places of the house without exception, as well as any rooms with open unblocked access to it (such as the kitchen).

I'm not entirely sure on what happened next. I don't remember if I was chased, or if I just panic-ran, or whatever, but regardless of the method the end result was the same. I reached some kind of old makeshift storeroom. It looked like it used to be a bedroom that the former owners had decided to just toss their junk into, having the dimensions of a small child's room with a door-less closet on the back-right wall and a large window opposite it, both opening to just complete blackness. The walls were yellow and dusty, the floor was covered nearly wall to wall with old tables, overturned chairs, empty nightstands, bookshelves, wardrobes, and two large dressers with a large CRT television set from like the 1970s standing atop each. The room's sole light source came from a dying desk lamp from about the same era, buried somewhere beneath the sea of wood so what little light it could give off was muffled heavily.


Now you might be thinking a room with only one exit isn't the best place to hole up, and even I, for all my displays of intelligence so far, was aware of that. Which is why the very first thing I did was slam the door shut, get on my knees, and throw all my weight against it. I held onto the doorknob with all my might, while also trying to be the world's mightiest doorstopper at the same time. Right on cue, something came pounding against the other side. I didn't know what it was, and I really didn't want to see what it was.

It kept hammering itself against the door, and I was struggling to keep it shut. It wasn't doing a terrible job, as more than once the door would open by a few inches. Once it was almost long enough for an arm to get through, but I rammed the door shut with my shoulder as hard as I could before I saw anything. I never saw any hint of what it was, and though the possibility it could have been someone else just as desperate as me looking for shelter ran through my mind, I didn't want to take any chances (especially seeing as it made no noises or cries of its own).

Eventually the presence on the other side stopped trying to get in, and I didn't waste time. I figured it left for the time being, buying myself enough time to try and barricade the door. It wasn't worth squandering the opportunity in my eyes. I think I'd be more cautious in real life but in real life I wouldn't have opened the door to this place to begin with.

The trouble with making a barricade was most of the stuff I could barricade with was incredibly heavy and I was afraid of making too much noise and potentially drawing any more attention towards my location. I got up to try and see what I could do and examine any more potential options, locking the door as I turned away. I took a quick glance back toward the door and saw that it was suddenly wide open, light spilling out into the empty and narrow hallway.

The status quo for my intelligence so far was reset and as such I took this horrible implication and reality amazingly well. "I could have sworn I closed it until it latched. My memory is crap though so maybe I didn't and it swung open?" went my thought. So I closed it, latched it, locked it, and then went to try testing the weight of one of the dressers. I turned around and the door was open again. I had the exact same thought as the first time and went and did it all again. I was beginning to get nervous and frustrated that I kept forgetting if I had locked it or not, worrying that something might see the light and get in while I wasn't looking.

Then it happened again. This time when I went back, I promised myself to remember this time, and if it still opened anyway, panic. Just as I grabbed the door, a figure stepped out of the shadows and into the light pool cast into the hall. I screamed but it turned out to be a false alarm; it was just my mother for some reason. So of course I screamed even harderIt was like she had been there the entire time, and suddenly I was literally a kid again. Presumably my father was somewhere in the house too. But for the time being it was just the two of us spending the night in the murderghost house.

I told her she naturally scared me, and lying through gritted teeth I told her that weird things had been happening, not wanting to sound insane. Thankfully she just up and called this place haunted, which was good because I then had a valid reason to quickly pull her into the room and shut the door before anything else saw the light. I went back to trying to barricade, when I notice faint blue light coming from the window. Dawn was coming.

Just as I start to wonder if it would be safer to try breaking the window and getting outside that way, all of a sudden I'm already out there, window unbroken. The dream recontextualized everything again, and now I was Duke Nukem, or more accurately was playing some Duke 3D map or whatever. My mother became some woman Duke was trying to protect (don't try reading into that I already hate it), still left behind in the room. The dream also recontextualized the whole murderhouse business. There was still an angry conglomerate that wanted me dead, it just wasn't the rowdy lingering essences of the deceased. No it was the aliens, of course, still amassed and still pissed all the same.

The visuals also became that of the Build engine, the dawn sky filled with a blue-colored static lava texture. The grass was the generic grass texture, slopes were sharp and angular instead of gentle and rolling, the house turned white and was a mere two stories tall (still plenty of width and length however), and the ocean only existed about half a mile offshore (though the "sea" sky texture filled in the gap at the same point it does in that sky, just with the orange replaced with the aforementioned blue lava). About the only visual element that wasn't right was a large naturally-formed archway on the far side of the island, with a land bridge going over the beach to culminate in a lighthouse at the summit of a massive rock island.

As Duke, I quickly ran around to the backside of the house (which had those unnatural sloped grass barriers at the edge of the map, as well as a small stone fountain both of which were made out of Duke 3D assets), and found around 3-4 thousand aliens being fielded at once to strike me down once and for all. We're talking everything short of bosses. And in the middle of the surging crowd of alien angst was the Cyloid Emperor himself, back at it again for round who even knows anymore. There was a fun air of "about time" to the whole encounter. "I was wondering when you bastards would get around to this. Come get some."

Despite being stuck with mostly the vanilla weaponset to deal with the pain army, there was one glorious exception: the chaingun had the minigun attachment from Alien Armageddon. Ammo restrictions appeared to not be a concern for this particular fight, as I was able to hold down the fire button without stopping (sadly uncommon in AA but always glorious when it occurs) and just keep cutting into the alien horde like I was the harbinger of the lead-based apocalypse. My only regret is that the battle did not play out like a real in-game battle. Unfortunately all the typical dream battle weirdness was present, though in my favor for once.

Once the horde was dead it was time to take down the big man himself, except now my dream remembered ammo was a thing so I was bone-dry for the ripper and apparently didn't have any rockets or devastator ammo. I went strafehopping around the island to try and find some, the Emperor being much faster than he is in reality, bearing down on me at almost all times. At one point I actually somehow managed to Mario bounce off one of his missles, which was admittedly really cool.

Unfortunately this story ends with an anticlimax, as I wasn't able to find ammo before I started to wake up. What a shame, too. Finally tired of Duke's shit, the Emperor mobilizes the largest force he has ever mustered, and threw them all at this tiny earth island just to be rid of this one man once and for all. But Duke tore through them all like they were nothing, and it was time to face him down mano-a-mano once again, now apparently with some upgrades since the last battle. And we will never know the outcome, though we can probably assume.


Not quite how I expected the dream to turn out, but I'm not exactly complaining. Funnily enough that wasn't even the first time that Duke managed to cancel a nightmare. But I will save that particular story for another time.

[High Treason]

Parts of it sound vaguely like Dimension Shift.


In regards to triggering things using babes;
 KILLHER.zip (854bytes)
Number of downloads: 382

Not sure about saving them though, there are maybe ways to do it with 'undrawing' but I don't think they'd be too reliable.

[Aleks]

High Treason, on 11 December 2020 - 03:39 PM, said:

In regards to triggering things using babes;
KILLHER.zip

Not sure about saving them though, there are maybe ways to do it with 'undrawing' but I don't think they'd be too reliable.

Hah, was also thinking about doing a test map for it. Here's my take:
 saveher.rar (926bytes)
Number of downloads: 337


In this case you can either press use on the trapped babe to "save" her and open door, or kill her to block it from opening even after using the hidden switch. Something I didn't account for is possibility to still spawn the "saved" girl after killing the trapped one, but it's also doable.

[Ninety-Six]

High Treason, on 11 December 2020 - 03:39 PM, said:

Parts of it sound vaguely like Dimension Shift.

Which parts? Sadly I've never played because of the Polymer requirements for the early parts of the series. I'm a bit of a chronology nerd that way.

[High Treason]

Aside from the very start of the map, it takes place in a large, white house on an island. This island is in a lake, though, not in the sea. The front door doesn't vanish, but it cannot be opened, there are vanishing doors of sorts in other parts of the level, however. The only part of the house you can access at first is a kitchen. The house probably is haunted, ghostly footsteps lead you to that kitchen and back to the entrance hall again. There is a child's bedroom which you get trapped in, the walls are not yellow but it does appear to exist in a yellow dimension not accessible from anywhere else. In that room, there is a door on the back right wall that leads to a bathroom but never opens and, beyond the bathroom, is another bedroom with a large CRT. You can move a barricade in front of two doors in this area - though in both cases, you move them out of the way to unblock things rather than block them. At one time, you were going to leave through a window in that bedroom, but this was changed for various reasons. Instead, a ghost moves an obstacle out of the way. A female appears in that room. There are two stone fountains, though I seem to think the actual fountain part was removed from the second one, due to hitting the sprite limits for a few seconds at map load - if you kick walls too much in the first few seconds, you can still crash the game sometimes.
The boss part is entirely different, though, as there are very few enemies in the map and the boss battle takes place in a 'reality bubble' of sorts, or I guess that's what I'd call it, as I never felt like it was part of the house or even on the same plane of existence.




I'd always meant to remake the first two maps, but it isn't likely to happen now. If it did happen, then Riverside and Quantum would probably be merged into one anyway. Riverside bugs me the most due to TROR, that would be ditched. Nitro onwards would be left as-is because, really, only RS and QP are blatantly rough compared to the others and the former breaks design rules I set out later.
Once, I did dream about the house in DS, but that was when I was spending many hours a day trying to squash bugs before its release. The dream wasn't interesting, being more like walking around in a museum. Those tend to happen though, have similar ones about places in my book when working on that, had ones about Blood years ago when I mapped for that. Nothing ever really happens in them, it's just a tour of the location.

[Ninety-Six]

Been playing a lot of Duke lately so it's not particularly surprising I've had a few of these in recent days.

This one's a bit hazy too, but I do remember more of it versus the previous two.


It started off as a mix between Duke, "Reality," and BTSX from Doom. That is to say, it started off framed as "real" but had elements of both Duke and BTSX in it, before sliding firmly into game territory.


For reasons I can't recall I was on some sort of tropical island and had to make my way across it. Some kind of mission or whatever. The water and grass/rocks were very much BTSX, but there were Build-ish elements dotted around, such as helicopter pads made out of sprite tiles. Interestingly, the helicopters that would be on those pads were one of the HRP renditions of the helicopter instead of the original sprite.

There was a lot of trekking through the jungle and then heading down into underground bunkers and storage areas, before returning to the surface and repeating.


Things got interesting after emerging from one of the last ones, where the sky was some kind of fusion between the Area 51/Critical Mass sky and then the starry sky. Like it had been shifted down somewhat to make room for more stars. The effect was that it was simulating a sky getting darker and darker. Apparently the previous "levels" had been doing this as well (kinda like BTSX) and I always appreciate the logical passage of time. This was the point where it became fully game-based.

Apparently there were alternate endings. There was a helicopter pad right outside the bunker, and apparently I could ride it and trigger some kind of sky battle. Or I could push forward.


I guess I pushed forward, because the next part I remember was being in a really dark subterranean lab or storage area or maybe even like some kind of old farm. At this point the dream shifted to be 100% Duke, with its weapons, the aliens, and it being yet another map. That said, this was Duke by way of Half-Life, and by that I mean there were a lot of scripted events to help sell an unsettling atmosphere. It reminded me a lot of zykov eddy's "The Dream" series, but significantly less intense.

This is the part of the dream that sticks out better in my mind, but I wish I could describe the aesthetics of this place well. It's so difficult to properly put to words. A lot of the "level" was really dark, but I still remember the textures. If anyone has ever played TF2, imagine like the RED side of 2Fort, with the sorta red barn look it has for some of the walls, and the ground was made of that arid grass/dirt/sand texture. But there was a lot of metal crates made out of Duke textures everywhere, as well as a lot of Duke's more industrial and high-tech textures sharing the walls with Build geometry for further detail.

I'm making it sound way less cohesive than it actually was, because despite the polar opposite thematics, it seemed to be assembled in such a way as to imply the EDF or whatever converted this old barn into some kind of lab or whatever for an unknown purpose before it was abandoned. And it was definitely abandoned; lots of darkness, loose wires, and I'd say not even the construction was fully finished. I remember loose floor tiles and incomplete floors giving way to that same dusty ground texture again. Kind of reminds me of the Lonely Mountain Complex from Red 5, also being a facility that was abandoned during construction.


I remember two locked doors being in this T-junction (with me entering from the right branch of the T). The center door was locked by a red card and apparently I knew this was where I had to go. On the opposite side was a blue door. The room with the blue key in it was this big storage room, defined as a double square (that is, one big square room with a second square in the middle of the room that was just 4 impassable walls). It was very dark and I remember fighting a surprisingly reasonable amount of troopers, enforcers, and Protector Drones. But I remember the AI breaking a fair few times, and getting stuck in corners. I remember returning to this room a fair number of times for whatever reason, and every time I did I would flip on the night vision and see a trooper or usually a protector drone walking into a corner between a wall and one of the many piles of crates. But they'd be facing away from me so I don't know how they broke. Oh, and also the blue key wasn't the normal Duke 3D blue keycard; it was Doom's blue keycard.

Behind the blue door was an elaborately winding but linear path to the red key (which was Doom's red skull instead). A lot more of the "farm" parts of this level were seen, and it was a bit better lit than the previous. One of the more interesting parts I remember was this curved hallway, both sides lined with metal textures with an inset band of lights in the middle of both, but still walking on dusty ground with a dirt ceiling. This hall actually led to a fake 4-way intersection (that is, the room was + shaped but only had two entrances/exits) where I distinctly remember fighting four Protector Drones and a Commander. I don't know why I remember that encounter in vivid detail but I do. The whole room actually sort of reminded me of Doom 3 for whatever reason? Despite being built of TF2 and Duke 3D textures. I don't know why that room makes me think of Doom 3 but again, I do.

Just past that room was another small boxy storage area, but this time instead of having it be a double square, it was just a simple box area with some crates stacked in the middle. One of the walls used that X-brace transparent wall thing over a patch of exposed earth (again represented by TF2 rock textures). Above the crates in the middle of the room was a light that looked less like anything from any of the games mentioned so far and more like one of those circle closet lamp things that you can press to turn on. Despite this the room was lit up like a normal Duke 3D level. On the far side of the room was the red key, and when you picked it up another one of those Halflife-esque scripted sequences happened, where a very loud pop/crack could be heard and the lights shut off. At the same time, the entrance to the room was closed off. Again I don't know why this particular moment stood out to me.

Nevertheless, after a few moments of silence, a previously unseen elevator opened up opposite the exposed rock wall. It did so silently, but you could see the rectangle of light slowly appear on the floor. Two protector drones came out (lots of those in this imaginary level apparently), and then things get foggy again. I know the elevator didn't stay an elevator and became just an exit. Passing through more dark corridors that intersected with the route taken to get the red key, which was also dark. I woke up before I opened the red door though.

[Aleks]

Hah, that's some detailed memories from a dream, Ninety-Six, these are barely ever that clear in my case. Maybe it's your brain telling you to start mapping yourself and create all that stuff?


A couple days ago I had a dream where I was playing ck3D's Blast Radius level with the red sunset looks, which in my dream had some rooftops made with sloped sprites. For a completely not understandable for me reason, the level was named "Triforce Structure" (no idea wtf that even means), don't remember any enemy encounters, but the vibe and mood was great, so I was mostly just exploring it.

[Ninety-Six]

Aleks, on 16 December 2020 - 04:43 AM, said:

Hah, that's some detailed memories from a dream, Ninety-Six, these are barely ever that clear in my case. Maybe it's your brain telling you to start mapping yourself and create all that stuff?

I was blessed with the ability to remember my dreams to a usually decent degree of detail. It helps that I make a habit of recording the more interesting ones after waking up (seen above with the haunted house island one). Granted the payment seems to be piss-poor sleep so as a result I tend to wake up quicker so the dreams have a higher chance of staying in memory.

After ck3d's tip about level design being a lot of improv, it probably got me over the last mental hurdle stopping me from trying. Now it's just a matter of finding the time to start learning and then actually doing. Though when my wrists are feeling good and I'm not gaming, I tend to be more of a writer so it's gonna be a balancing act of the two hobbies.

Aleks, on 16 December 2020 - 04:43 AM, said:

A couple days ago I had a dream where I was playing ck3D's Blast Radius level with the red sunset looks, which in my dream had some rooftops made with sloped sprites. For a completely not understandable for me reason, the level was named "Triforce Structure" (no idea wtf that even means), don't remember any enemy encounters, but the vibe and mood was great, so I was mostly just exploring it.

That is a really cool name though. It sounds like it would more appropriately belong to a more out-there level, such as an alien machine or hive construct, rather than a city though.

[ck3D]

Ninety-Six, on 16 December 2020 - 05:50 AM, said:

I was blessed with the ability to remember my dreams to a usually decent degree of detail. It helps that I make a habit of recording the more interesting ones after waking up (seen above with the haunted house island one). Granted the payment seems to be piss-poor sleep so as a result I tend to wake up quicker so the dreams have a higher chance of staying in memory.

Writing dreams down before you forget about them (funny how quickly most of those memories can evaporate when sometimes a particular one will remain for your whole lifetime, at least that's how I am) is a cool habit I wish I developed more myself, it's a pretty cool form of self-development I believe (by analyzing what your subconscious generates, you get closer to some deeper understanding of yourself and connect more personal dots), and something one does when they practice lucid dreams.

Ninety-Six, on 16 December 2020 - 05:50 AM, said:

After ck3d's tip about level design being a lot of improv, it probably got me over the last mental hurdle stopping me from trying. Now it's just a matter of finding the time to start learning and then actually doing. Though when my wrists are feeling good and I'm not gaming, I tend to be more of a writer so it's gonna be a balancing act of the two hobbies.

Honestly, mapping is only as time-consuming as you let it. For me it's just one out of maybe a dozen of creative hobbies I practice, including a few that take up all the rest of my free time or I have made an occupation out of (so basically, in a field or another I'm creating non stop) and quite frankly yes, it's something you need to find space for, the thought is actually on my mind quite a lot and there are days where I kind of kick myself in the ass for preferring mapping over doing something else, but you just gotta go with the flow, it's pretty easy in practice to watch that it doesn't devour the rest if you're a responsible person. Thing is, you don't even have to 'start a map' thinking it will go anywhere far, just sneaking in an hour or two here and there after you've learned the basics (which will come really quickly, the documentation is great and the modern tools powerful; if learning with Build might have been a relative nightmare back in the day, now it's clearly no longer the case with Mapster32 and this 'reputation' needs to go down as antiquated), you might find yourself with enough rooms to call a map before you realize it. When it starts becoming an addictive process is when you'll find yourself reconsidering how you're used to schedule your free time, but you'll work it out naturally, it's a good topic to raise in fact, but in practice in the end you're still just doing what you want to be doing in the moment so it's not rocket science.

Either way, looking forward to what your style would look like and of course if you ever need any tech help, don't hesitate to holla, although the Infosuite really has almost all you need and should keep you busy for a bit.

@Aleks something that strikes me as particularly funny is how I think you told me you weren't familiar with the Zelda series after I told you some of your puzzles in Back In Business felt Zelda-inspired, but then the Triforce is actually the central thing in Zelda lore.

Not really on topic because not Duke-related but recently I've almost been scaring the shit out of myself with premonitory dreams. A few weeks back, I caught the dream that one of my friends in Florida was going to retire from a sport he was a professional in (there was never a sign he would be inclined to anytime soon) and just a few days later he did. And the other night, I caught the dream that a particular friend of mine I hadn't seen since the beginning of lockdown IRL first texted me that he was coming over, and then later retexted me that something had gone wrong with his bus so he wouldn't be able to make it. The next day IRL, I'm getting a text from my friend saying he's coming over. I tell him about the dream and we have a laugh, and then he showed up an hour late because something actually went wrong with his bus and they had to take some wild detour.

[Ninety-Six]

ck3D, on 17 December 2020 - 08:13 AM, said:

Writing dreams down before you forget about them (funny how quickly most of those memories can evaporate when sometimes a particular one will remain for your whole lifetime, at least that's how I am) is a cool habit I wish I developed more myself, it's a pretty cool form of self-development I believe (by analyzing what your subconscious generates, you get closer to some deeper understanding of yourself and connect more personal dots), and something one does when they practice lucid dreams.

Going slightly off-topic here, but:

For how much of my dreams I tend to remember, I find that there usually isn't a whole lot of point in analyzing dreams. They're usually as plain as they appear. Now granted I can't account for weird premonitory stuff and I don't think I ever want to be able to in fear of the answer.

That aside, while I have had the occasional dream with a personal revelation within it, they're far from common. Dreams are fueled more by emotion than anything, and tend to create snowball effects. This is what ultimately defines a nightmare as fear tends to lead to further fear. Obviously issues in your real life can affect dreams quite easily since lingering emotions can then carry on into them, and while deep-seated discoveries and secret motivations can be found in dreams, there should be concern for reading too deep into a dream. After all sometimes you can do things in a dream you would never even want to, and it doesn't always imply some unpleasant truth (I'm pretty confident I don't have some secret desire to walk into a murderhouse). Again, sometimes it can but more often than not it's just dreams being dreams.


That said, that doesn't mean there isn't value in recording them anyway. Sometimes it can be worth trying to figure out why certain elements in your dream were present from the perspective of before you went to sleep, rather than trying to inject meaning to their presence themselves if that makes sense.

Or, such as in my case, there is plenty of value in recording the more interesting ones for pure entertainment. I've always loved reading and hearing about other people's dreams, purely for the sake of hearing a wild and wacky story.

I also know there are people who keep dream journals to help them on the road to lucid dreaming. To those who go for it, I applaud it since as I understand you open yourself to a lot of nightmares during the process. But for me myself, I don't think I will short of frequently suffering night terrors. I kinda prefer the spontaneous random nature of my dreams as they are, and I don't think I'd be as interested in my own dreams if I was able to take active control over them every night. I feel like I'd lose out on some of the more interesting moments that came about on their own, such as Duke Nukem spontaneously rescuing me from a nightmare. In my opinion it's just not as magical if I had willed that to happen.

Of course I can totally understand why someone would feel the exact opposite. Being able to lucid dream basically means you become the god of your own little reality. And that can be cool too. But for me, with the ability to remember my dreams as well as I do, I almost feel like it would be a bit of a shame to lose that unpredictability.

[ck3D]

I guess I don't write my dreams down regularly either not just due to laziness (if I wanted to do it I'd just do it) but also because I'm with you on a lot on that. I like how you're saying dreams are 'as plain as they appear' because simultaneously I think they both mean a lot and in the end not that much that translates into the modern world. They look like abstractions but usually reflect something so primal on a subconscious level it's barely intelligible with all our social codes but I think they're essentially the direct by-product of your current state of mind (which isn't something two-dimensional and probably explores every possible factor in your existence you can think of that contributed to lead you where you are in that moment). So analyzing them in their form can only say so much, but generally the aftertaste it leaves you with is essentially your mind trying to hint at obstacles to conquer in order to move onto your next step towards fulfillment, or so I believe. And some other times it reacts to some bullshit stimuli instead of something deep such as having watched the wrong movie at the wrong hour.

I was kind of joking throwing the term premonitory around earlier (although I guess technically that's what they were) but I meditate quite a bit and if anything, I like imagining stuff like this being an indication that I'm rather in tune with my environment. I know, some hippie shit.

One thing that does freak me out a bit for real though (or at least has me tripping) is how I seem to have persistent universes in which I dream a lot. Of course most dreams will be one-offs but experiencing the same feelings over and over it's almost like I've developed a routine in some parallel existences that are coherent within themselves. Like I have fixed fictional realities that regularly come back and abide by the same rules and I know it when I'm in one because the whole world in there feels familiar like I'm visiting different known planets.

[Ninety-Six]

consistency can sometimes be the most bizarre thing in all of dreaming

[High Treason]

I consider dreams to exist on different tiers. Most of them are on the low tiers and are just a list of events that must happen - these are weird, because if you become aware of them and break the script, things in the dream seem to freeze until you put yourself back on course, though sometimes the people in them become hostile. There are a bunch of tiers in between, but towards the higher level there are ones that do exist in a consistent 'reality' of their own.

The ones I have like that bother me, as there are multiple locations, but one in particular seems to show up a lot. It is a town that is largely empty and seems to have been left to rot around the end of the 1800s. Once, I found a Polaroid on a table, easily noticed because it looked so far out of place. For some reason, I thought that if I took photos, I'd be able to bring them back with me, so I took several until it was time to wake up. As the dream faded, I held the camera and the little photos tightly, standing on a street I never really walk on (5th, I think). Obviously I was met with disappointment, because the camera didn't come back with me, though it was nothing new as I tried to bring a person back once.
And so I kept having the odd dream in that town, where I'd walk by the end of that street and notice something broken on the ground, but I never went to investigate it. Then after a few years, I lost a coat and walked down that street to find it, only to look at the ground and see a smashed camera with faded photos laying around it - as though I had simply vanished on the spot and it had fallen to the ground. I'd forgotten about it until then.

And now the part that freaks me out. For some reason, when talking about the town to people, I'd sometimes accidentally call it 'Oregon' and then have to back up and simply say 'The town', as 'Oregon' made no sense, it didn't look like Oregon (the state) and I've never been there anyway. I remarked that the town looked more like the Midwest. There are other consistent places, such as a dry, arid place with only a few small buildings that seems to be from a little later in time than the town and is, surely, a long way from it, as in, much further west.
Meanwhile, in other dreams, there's this girl. She's my sister, or at least, she is in the dreams; I don't have a sister in real life (aside from a few half-sisters that I don't know very well, she isn't one of them). Strangely, she seems to know that it's a dream, seems to understand how they work, but her knowledge of things seems to run out after a certain time period - she has practically no knowledge of synthesizers, for example, but found the idea of them fascinating when I explained them to her. I tried to bring her back with me once. She knew it wouldn't work, she made fun of me, which is weird in itself because I can control things in my dreams, an effect she seems to be immune to and will merely smirk at me if I try. I know that smile, cocky and a little arrogant, made only worse by her mildly condescending tone of voice. It almost annoys me, but I can't help but like her for it.
Why would I mention keyboards to her? Well, sometimes she plays a piano, usually an old upright piano that has a very distinctive sound, if only as it seems to be tuned quite flat. I don't know a lot of the songs she plays, but some of them I do, old hyms mostly. Then there's one song in particular that was written for me.
One time, she was at at the piano, wearing the old timey clothing she wears and prodding the keys. But the front of the piano was off. I happened to lean over to look at its insides and noticed lettering stamped into a large piece of metal, which read "Schiller. Oregon ILL". It didn't quite click until after I had the dream. In fact, I forgot all about the latter part, disregarded the whole thing as random trash information until I mentioned it to somebody. We punched the piano name into a search engine and it returned a piano maker, from that time period, based in Oregon, Illinois. It turns out the town I've been walking around in for all this time does exist and, for reasons unknown, my brain has a near perfect map of it and the surrounding area as it was around the 1890s - a town I didn't know existed in a country I've never been to.
Those dreams always feel more like memories than dreams, they're weird. That certainly isn't the only time information I hadn't known of turned out to be correct, but I'd be here all day if I went through it all. What bugs me about them is that I like to think I have this nice, objective, scientific view of reality, that I don't have time for such nonsense. I tried to ignore it all for years, but it won't go away. I never liked that town much, always felt like I was being forced to be there, the dusty place from later is better, I feel happy there. I dunno, it's funny how when you're younger, you think you know everything, but as you get older and you learn more, you only really learn how little you actually do know.

However, I do have this. With my meager musical abilities, I tried to transcribe the song she plays for me, but it is beyond my understanding of music by quite a way and is still wrong, it's as close as I can get; https://youtu.be/oqZf9Z_k2T8?t=1871
- And this is my excuse for being off topic, because I'm not and this is Duke related, because if you skip back to songs 1 and 3, you'll see Build porn.
Plus I keep dreaming about level editing now, as I'm still tempted to remake Riverside and Quantum at some point. I did dream briefly of the power station part in the former.

[Ninety-Six]

That, yeah I... yeah I got nothing. I also like to consider myself more on the logical side but the amount of times I hear of stuff like that... is a bit too often for me to be comfortable dismissing every story. Got jack-all for an explanation, though. The woman in particular fascinates me but that's definitely getting off-topic. Maybe there should be a General Dream thread too or something.

[Ninety-Six]

Got another one, woo!


For this one, I was sleeping terribly so this dream played out less like a sequence of bizarre events and more like a sequence of disconnected images that sort of phased into each other.


I was playing some bizarrely modified version of Red Light District. There were like two or three vent shafts (single-wide unlike the double-wide vent that is actually there on the streets), I think one of which could be shot to find stuff inside. The other two had clearly unopened alcoves within them since you could see a corner of them inset into the rest. Instead of Death Toll, the music playing was actually City Streets. The sky was using the stars texture instead of the city one, and outside the walls that mark the level boundaries were massive canyon walls. If anyone has ever played Duke 64 (and if you haven't you totally should; you have two excellent PC options available) and saw its version of Launch Facility, it looked a lot like the rocket site in there.

About half of the Pig spawns had been replaced with Enforcers, but I think I still had the E1 arsenal to deal with them. The pipebombs were also glitched out. For those unaware I am a very frequent user of the pipes in real Duke 3D, and when I play the actual RLD I tend to go on an explosive rampage. I tried to do that here and the pipes refused to kill anything. All it did was kick the Pigs and Enforcers around instead of dealing tangible damage to them. I remember the Pig in the detonation room (who was still a pig here) took five pipes to kill.


After some phasing in and out of consciousness I was now inside the building that gets blown up, but before it detonates. Though instead of looking like an actual building, condemned or not, instead it was this one, long, constantly S-curving hallway. It was very wide, and very dark. There was one 4-way intersection I think, with an Octabrain in it, but when I crossed into it a massive chain of explosions started racing for me, at which point I had to run as fast as I could (without steroids) along the winding walls to escape. I remember being able to see the explosions on the map, and I distinctly remember the explosions hitting a wall, stopping, and then going down the next turn. It acted like some kind of scripted monster not unlike the Gargantua chase sequences from Half-Life. Except instead of a giant alien it was just a constantly exploding wall of get the hell out.

I eventually escaped, coming out of one of the vents that was right next to this building (I remember it had an alcove so I think I came out of there), and then watched as the normal building detonation sequence played out.


Things get hazy again, but then I actually started to dream about this place. As in, duke4. There were three members I was watching a discussion of from. Nansci/Watchtower was talking about the music to Mya/Kyatrix and brought up City Streets. He mentioned a piece of trivia about the song, something about George having it changed for a really bizarre reason, to which a third member who I can't recall said "what the hell George, that's like adding a bunch of stuff and saying it's not small enough". Something to that effect anyway. After that I woke up for the last time.


Despite being active for 2 and a half years and lurking for more on top of that, I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've dreamed about any members in particular. Not that anything special was happening with them but still. I find it neat. It was inevitable, but still neat.

[jkas789]

High Treason, on 11 December 2020 - 03:39 PM, said:

Parts of it sound vaguely like Dimension Shift.


In regards to triggering things using babes;
KILLHER.zip

Not sure about saving them though, there are maybe ways to do it with 'undrawing' but I don't think they'd be too reliable.

Quote

Hah, was also thinking about doing a test map for it. Here's my take:
Attached File saveher.rar (926bytes)
Number of downloads: 3


In this case you can either press use on the trapped babe to "save" her and open door, or kill her to block it from opening even after using the hidden switch. Something I didn't account for is possibility to still spawn the "saved" girl after killing the trapped one, but it's also doable.

Well now I know what I will be doing today the 24 while I'm stuck in the hospital.

[Šneček]

Merry Christmas guys,

Tonight I had a dream that is not directly related to Duke Nukem, but maybe a bit with the map, which I am working on - only sometimes and very slowly. In a dream, I was in front of an abandoned two-story station building near the tracks. But that's probably all I can remember, the point is that I've been trying to make a map in a mapster in a train station environment for some time now - but I'm still at the beginning, there is so little done that I don't plan to post any more photos yet. I think I would like to make a little more extensive map and I'm not sure if I will finish the map at all in the future and not leave my idea. So this is definitely not a map announcement (for now).

Attached thumbnail(s)

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[MrFlibble]

I had a very short section of a dream recently where I was playing the Atomic Edition and somehow there was a Dopefish level in Episode IV. I only remember the beginning where you were standing in some kind of a doorway/portal with water flowing over the steps (likely somewhat influence by my recent poking around Strife), and a small Dopefish graffiti (similar to the one from Ion Fury but much smaller in size) was over the doorway. Not a lot of detail.

And sometime last year I had a more detailed and frantic dream that Predreeke sent me a weapons mod he was working on, and a map which I played with it. The mod either completely overhauled the arsenal or replaced some weapons, I remember finding some explosive type stuff like I.M. Mines from Dark Forces, and running around the map because of numerous enemies and not much ammo -- or I could not get at the right distance from the monsters to use those new weapons efficiently. The layout was a courtyard surrounded by tall buildings, something like a larger and more complex/sprawling version of the starting area in E3L1, and possibly influenced by a video that was posted here in the forums showing an area from Ion Fury -- I vaguely remember running around a similar place with a lot of enemies (or maybe it was in LRG's or Civvie11's review of the game). Sadly the dream was less vivid than what I posted about here some time ago based on TekWar so not many details here.

[necroslut]

I dreamt that a new DNF video was leaked. For some reason Gearbox had shown it at a closed-doors press thing, and some Microsoft guy had leaked it online. It showed the "people are turning into monsters" and "what are you gonna do?" segments from other angles (player angles), and an early implementation of the Holsom twins, and not much more.

[FistMarine]

Had some Duke related dreams in past few nights.

One night I dreamed about playing a standalone TC that seemed like a combination of both Starship Troopers TC and Oblivion TC. The first level seemed like a timed level where you had to complete it quickly before the level explodes. What's funny is in BOTH TCs, the first level is a timed level, although in Oblivion only the last part of the level becomes timed and you must escape the ship quickly before you die. It's been a while since I played Oblivion TC, while I have never played SST TC before (only remember testing it once in DOSBox and watching some YouTube videos of it). Hopefully soon will change and I will get through it at least once, as I heard it's one of the best TCs.

The other night I dreamed about playing NAM and although most of the dream seemed to be similar to the original game, the only different thing was that the large medkit was using the sprites from Duke3D instead of the ones available in NAM, which is funny since NAM has a lot of stolen resources from various Build games. The dream could have also been about Platoon TC (the free Duke3D TC) which actually had unmodified medkit sprites from Duke3D.

Last night I had a rather interesting dream, which I wrote on a text document when I woke up in the morning. I dreamed about a horror style Duke3D user map/mod. It was a sudden release by a newcomer in the community. I can't remember the person's name but I remember by either playing or watching someone play, that there is something unusual that happens halfway through map, a scary sound and effect happens where the screen flashes, the colors get distorted and shows the Beta 0.99 Scuba Gear mask (which takes up like half of screen) and changes to underwater palette, with the screen starting to get covered in white circles. Something strange was happening to Duke and he started screaming and dying.

After checking out the topic again, there was a member asking about which scary part and when it happens (after some people started complaining about that scene), so that he can avoid/skip it. I was going to help the person with my best knowledge, since I was also freaked out a bit. A few minutes later, I went to the Downloads page of Duke4.net (there was a Downloads page that had every user map and mod uploaded and rated by other people, like on Doomworld forums) and I read a review by Necroslut where he rated the map 2/5 stars and said something like he enjoys horror movies and games in general, but felt like this map relied too much on cheat jumpscares. I think there may have been another review by Nancsi/Watchtower that said something similar, I don't remember if on same map or another one.

On the more positive part of the dream, I remember ordering sealed Duke Nukem 3D big boxes off eBay and funnily enough, they were delivered immediately upon paying, as if the delivery vans teleported in front of my building or something. In the dream, I think I had ordered Duke addons like Duke Assault and Duke Zone (both of which seem to show up often on eBay) and they both had a very similar cover to the Duke Nukem 3D big box. In reality, I don't have Duke Assault and its cover is different anyway, based on the images I have seen on internet, while the Duke Zone cover seems to be similar to the one from Duke3D big box (at least that part was correct in the dream) and in reality, I actually have a Duke Zone sealed box, so I don't have to order another one. Shame that I didn't get the Duke Nukem 3D big box back in November when I had the opportunity to get it (it contained a sealed Duke3D jewel case, the box and its contents were in Very Good condition). Would have been an excellent birthday present, which I missed by just two hours since the listing would have ended later that day, though someone else got it like 2 hours earlier before I did. Oh well, at least a while ago, I got another sealed set of Kill-a-Ton CDs at a good deal, so now I have two sets.

That's all I remember from the dream (the last part where I mentioned about the Duke CDs/boxes I have is real, though).