[Maarten]

Hello community!
Here is my Space level, on my birthday. Have to say I haven't been so inspired for at least 9 years, and I hope it shows! I had a lot of fun, I hope you will have fun with it as well!

MADE FOR: Eduke32 & classic mode!

Preview:



Download link:

https://wetransfer.c...14222758/37f1a9

Review & download link (thanks Mikko!!): http://msdn.duke4.ne...spacetronic.php

Cheers!
Maarten

[PsychoGoatee]

Happy birthday dude! Kudos on the release, will give it a play sometime soon.

[Mike Norvak]

Feliz Cumpleaños! I'm glad I left work early. Gonna try it right now

[Sanek]

Played it. Took me about 30 minutes. And yep, as I said, it's a map of the year.

The beginning of the map really amazed me, it's the most jaw dropping backround that I've seen in a long time! The desing of the map is probably Maarten's best since ABBA, and it's nice to see another map from such a talent. The only part that I don't like is the yellow key part (kitchen, archives and such), which breaks the illusion of being inside the space station. The layout tends to be a little bit confusing at times, but nothing unfair and monsters/items ratio is allright too..except the turrets, which become irritating in such big doses. The item hunt trick is not someting we're unfamiliar with, but it's a nice break from the usual button and keycard hunting (and it's there too!). The grand finale is...well, grand, but it could use less slimers hanging around the last battlelord.
I also noticed 2 door bugs here:

1. The door that leads to the round hallway with alien hive don't stop it's opening sound.

2. The door that leads to the room with lots of drones closes after a while, and you can't get in (I've had to use dnclip). Or you supposed to be trapped in that room?

Anyway, it's a great map, one of the best I've played in a long time!

[Maarten]

Thanks people!

 Sanek, on 14 July 2017 - 04:45 PM, said:

Played it. Took me about 30 minutes. And yep, as I said, it's a map of the year.

The beginning of the map really amazed me, it's the most jaw dropping backround that I've seen in a long time! The desing of the map is probably Maarten's best since ABBA, and it's nice to see another map from such a talent. The only part that I don't like is the yellow key part (kitchen, archives and such), which breaks the illusion of being inside the space station

Thanks man! Very glad to hear that About the yellow key part: I wanted a realistic ship, just take it like this: lots of humans are working (or did work in this case) in this ship, and this is their room for the breaks And I was aiming for some variation too.

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except the turrets, which become irritating in such big doses (.....) The grand finale is...well, grand, but it could use less slimers hanging around the last battlelord.
I also noticed 2 door bugs here:

1. The door that leads to the round hallway with alien hive don't stop it's opening sound.

2. The door that leads to the room with lots of drones closes after a while, and you can't get in (I've had to use dnclip). Or you supposed to be trapped in that room?

I see what you mean about the slimers & turrets, I just love to challenge the player, but hopefully not too much TuP was a bit too easy after all.

1.I'm familair with that game bug, but never had this problem in my map, neither heard it from my beta-testers. Hmmm... odd.

2.it's supossed to close again. Mysterious drones mwuahaha!

Thanks for the honest comments!

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Anyway, it's a great map, one of the best I've played in a long time!

Awesome to hear man!

[Jolteon]

Played through this last night on come get some, and I really enjoyed it. I liked how certain parts of the map reminded me of some of the different areas from Ep2 Lunar Apocalypse. I only found 4 out of 8 secrets. Just a few things I like to point out on what happened during my playthrough.

1. This switch for some reason when I pressed it didn't unlock the door which was supposed to do, but I pressed again, it actually did unlocked the door. (I think I had a similar problem in TAM Duke.)


2. An Octabrain somehow ended up getting glitched outside in Space. There was no way for me to kill him. (I tried, but failed miserably).


But aside from that this was awesome map to play.

Also...

I misread on this a bit and thought the name was Oprah!

[max_nukem]

Amazing huge map! I play through above 40 min! How many time you create it?

[Maarten]

 Jolteon, on 15 July 2017 - 07:43 AM, said:

Played through this last night on come get some, and I really enjoyed it. I liked how certain parts of the map reminded me of some of the different areas from Ep2 Lunar Apocalypse.

Thanks, Jolteon! And that's right: I always love to have some nostalgic stuff (duke or music) but at same make it all feel 'modern'

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1. This switch for some reason when I pressed it didn't unlock the door which was supposed to do, but I pressed again, it actually did unlocked the door. (I think I had a similar problem in TAM Duke.)
duke0218.png duke0219.png

I know this "bug", it's actually a Mapster thing: a hi-tag name which is the same as as the door & drones. I actually discovered this 1 hour before I was ready to release this level. Since it isn't too serious & didn't bother me, I kept it in anyway haha

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2. An Octabrain somehow ended up getting glitched outside in Space. There was no way for me to kill him. (I tried, but failed miserably).
duke0220.png duke0221.png

But aside from that this was awesome map to play.

Wow, that never happened here! Only bad lizzies got in the space.. which is a game bug I can't fix But hey, it's a old game after all.

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Also...
duke0214.png
I misread on this a bit and thought the name was Oprah!

Hahaha nice one!
Did you read the second viewscreen as well?
Hint: it's a movie easter eg...

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Amazing huge map! I play through above 40 min! How many time you create it?

Thanks Max_nukem! This map took me 10 months & 3 weeks! Which is, for me, pretty damn fast

[Merlijn]

Congrats on your release, brother!

I have seen this map since the humble beginnings and tested it multiple times, so bear in mind that I'm not objective at all.

But I'd say this map is easily on par with ABBA and the best Imperium maps. I agree with the points made in Mikko's review.
Although the entire map has your style written all over it, it's still fun to see several nods to the Lunar Apocalypse episode.

What really works very well is the lay-out. There are 3 different side-missions, which all loop back to the main area quite naturally.
(you "cheated" with 1 teleporter, but I prefer that over back tracking so that's perfectly fine).

The fact that there's a central armory room which you can use to replenish your supplies really helps the gameplay.
It means you can play the 3 sub-sections in any order you want, without distorting the balance.

At first I wasn't sure about the alien hive, but it adds variety to the whole thing and keep things fresh.
My favorite part is the section where you have to fight through the space warehouse (refreshing idea!) and retrieve the yellow keycard
by blowing shit up. It also happens to be the most challenging part hehe.

That's enough praises from me Go check this one out people.

[Mike Norvak]

Where is the friggin pipe?

[Merlijn]

The pipe is at the end of the alien hive section (on one of the columns, right before you reach the platform with the teleporter)

[Sanek]

Man, you really shouldn't release this map during the summer. The low amount of response is disasterous.

[Mike Norvak]

 Merlijn, on 20 July 2017 - 08:25 AM, said:

The pipe is at the end of the alien hive section (on one of the columns, right before you reach the platform with the teleporter)

Thanks! Gonna check it tonight, I've been wandering for about 15 min trying to figure out where that damn pipe is!

@Sanek: I thought people played more games in summer 🤔

[Micky C]

 Mike Norvak, on 19 July 2017 - 07:23 PM, said:

Where is the friggin pipe?

If it makes you feel any better I've also had some trouble navigating the map. It's not the sort of map where you switch off your brain that's for sure.

 Sanek, on 20 July 2017 - 09:50 AM, said:

Man, you really shouldn't release this map during the summer. The low amount of response is disasterous.

I said it before and I'll say it again. It's winter over here

[Mike Norvak]

@Micky

I'm having a really hard time trying to navigate the map. I don't think it has something to do with having the brain switched off but a problem of layout in the map and lack of visual hints or contextual marks on where to go next and where the items could be. I'm gonna write further on the matter when I finish the map.

@Merlijn: I can't even get to the hive, I have collected all the machine pieces except for the pipe, so now I need to figure how to get to the hive. Any clues?

Nevermind. I found the button puzzle code (damn, I hate button "puzzles" so much)

[Merlijn]

Hmm there's a viewscreen at the red keycard room which shows you the 3 force fields you need to shut off. All 3 sections are basically big loops back to the central area. Once you realize how the map "works" it's not that hard to navigate. There are a few difficult puzzles, but they didn't strike me as unfair. But again, I'm a bit biased.

[Jan Satcitananda]

A massive, awe-inspiring, and pretty intricate level which reminds me of some of Zaxtor's maps. It plays somewhat like classic Doom maps put into a new setting, more realistic feel with more diverse gameplay elements. I like the quest you've put into it, where you collect some parts for the spaceship. A reasonable amount of non-linear mechanics really adds to the feel. Maps made with a lot of fun are always enjoyable.

[quakis]

I probably came across these already without realising it but can't seem to find them after scouring the map a few times. Where can I find the following? I'm missing the "Oil Can" and a left bracket, looks like this -> [

[Maarten]

Heh, I didn't realize the "machine puzzle" would be hard for some of you... my beta testers didn't got stuck at least. Walkthrough video will come soon anyway, to help some of you out

Quakis: you're sure you visited all locations? The Oil Can is nearly at the same place where you did get the Forc Wheel. It's behind a forcefield which you can unlock @ a location nearby it The "[" item; it's behind the first forcefield on the right, when you start the map. You can see it on the left wall Of course, I take you already got on the otherside to unlock the forcefield?

I hope my explanations are clear enough haha

[Danukem]

Holy fuck, I finally got around to playing this map and it is amazing! It looks great, but for me the main selling point is the quantity and quality of diverse gameplay you were able to cram into it. I played on CGS, and the level of difficulty seemed perfect. I did have some trouble finding all the parts, but I never got truly frustrated with it. The crystal activation/cannon quest was the most fun imo. The map is a little on the long side for my tastes, but a terrific map nonetheless.

[Maarten]

Thanks, Trooper Dan! Glad to hear. Yeah, it's a quite long map, I had lots of inspiration and it's alot bigger then expected haha. I like the big spaceship feel alot

I recorded a walkthrough vid, it shows all the secrets as well. Hope it helps, in case someone is still lost in this map

[Paul B]

Epic map! I really enjoyed the game play. However, I wouldn't have finished the map without your video. I got stuck trying to figure out how to gain access to the Yellow key card. A hint or better indicator would have been nice. Also a few of your secrets were a bit odd and while I didn't find them all. I sort of got the impressions the secrets might have been an after thought, as some of them were in the vicinity of others and others in some really strange places. This will add more replay value anyway.

I liked the freedom of navigation in the map. My initial thoughts was damn this map is huge, I hope there's enough ammo to handle the amount of enemies I was going up against. But I really enjoyed how you let the player walk into the level without being under heavy attack. Definitely added to the atmosphere and its nice to explore and appreciate the design while not being pitted up against swarms of AI. There are too many creative ideas to mention and some I have never seen before such as the collecting of items other than key cards. But one that stood out was your use of slimmers. I really liked your implementation with the slimmers in a battle lord scenario. It was like the slimmers were shielding the battle lord and it made the fight more dynamic.

I will be uploading this map to my site shortly, I just have to replay it again from scratch as I had some custom art files from another map that unfortunately had an undesirable effect on your map and I didn't realize it until after I finished playing it. Its Grande maps like this that really ignite and inspire the community. Good job!

P.S - I too experienced the same switch problem as Jolteon mentioned for button #3

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[Maarten]

Cool! Thanks for your detailed post, Paul B!

 Paul B, on 27 August 2017 - 08:35 PM, said:

Epic map! I really enjoyed the game play. However, I wouldn't have finished the map without your video. I got stuck trying to figure out how to gain access to the Yellow key card. A hint or better indicator would have been nice.

Heh, I get what you mean..it's a bit tricky I guess. The hints are in viewscreen messages, like the one next to the 'Machine room' with the yellow keycard.

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Also a few of your secrets were a bit odd and while I didn't find them all. I sort of got the impressions the secrets might have been an after thought, as some of them were in the vicinity of others and others in some really strange places. This will add more replay value anyway.

Hah! Yeah I always love the idea of making many sneaky secrets. Some are easy, some are very tricky. That's what I always loved about games: even when you think you know everything about a game/project/map, there is still something left to surprisse you

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I liked the freedom of navigation in the map. My initial thoughts was damn this map is huge, I hope there's enough ammo to handle the amount of enemies I was going up against. But I really enjoyed how you let the player walk into the level without being under heavy attack. Definitely added to the atmosphere and its nice to explore and appreciate the design while not being pitted up against swarms of AI. There are too many creative ideas to mention and some I have never seen before such as the collecting of items other than key cards. But one that stood out was your use of slimmers. I really liked your implementation with the slimmers in a battle lord scenario. It was like the slimmers were shielding the battle lord and it made the fight more dynamic.

Thanks man! Glad to hear about the 'heavy attacks' didn't take over the map, since the map has a LOT of enemies. The collecting item machine is somethng which seem to got there out of nowhere; I always love to give a map something special...but this time, the inspiration came to me all the time Same goes to the slimmer thing. I wanted something special & different

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I will be uploading this map to my site shortly, I just have to replay it again from scratch as I had some custom art files from another map that unfortunately had an undesirable effect on your map and I didn't realize it until after I finished playing it. Its Grande maps like this that really ignite and inspire the community. Good job!

P.S - I too experienced the same switch problem as Jolteon mentioned for button #3

Thanks! Looking forward to your review.
And yeah... the switch #3 is something which could have been improved after all. It's a bit odd hahah. Oh well..

Glad to hear my video was helpfull as well!