This map was created by following AMC Web Forums members (in order of appearance): Nexus, Lezing (me), James, Eddy Zykov, William Gee, Mikko Sandt, Mike Norvak, MRCK, Micky C. Our goal was to build a map using a rule of 20 sectors per turn, adding small bits to a map and giving it to another mapper.
The project was started by Nexus back in 2010, but eventually has stalled for some years. Later we attempted to complete the map without the 20-sector rule, and now I've done my best to polish the map into more or less finished state. Big thanks to Forge, Mikko Sandt and Micky C for testing the map and pointing out some flaws.
This is a fairly long and massive nonlinear level with some puzzles and unique effects in addition to a plenty of enemies.
I must have remembered incorrectly. I thought the challenge was originally each person made their own map with no more than 20 sectors. But all the spritework you wanted.
edit: I did a search and yes I remembered wrongly.
This post has been edited by Mark.: 26 December 2017 - 11:16 AM
So far I've really been enjoying this map! Holy moly, so many decent things put into this! Pieces of amazing spritework, interesting puzzles requiring exploration and increased attention to details (loved the red keycard puzzle so much), great design examples and choices (like the mirror wall in the red card area; damn, I'm not even talking about the tank!), nice and witty scripted sequences (I can't even imagine how you managed to pull out the tank's obstacle detection mechanic without additional coding). Not to mention that several mapping veterans took part in this project (Mikko, Lezing, MRCK, WG, Eddy, James; sorry in advance if I forgot anyone). The only thing I'd complain about is the lack of proper shading in some areas (as it seemed to me).
I've already spent 50 mins on this one. Actually (as sad as it sounds), I can't proceed now because the game for some reason has started crashing after I picked up some kind of a cylinder-shaped item (see the attachment to understand the location). It doesn't crash immediately but after some time period passes (for my current savegame which was made after I'd obtained the item it's about 49 min and 48 sec on the timer). I'm also providing the logfile. Btw, I actually violated the rules and played the map with one of the latest builds of EDuke32 (r6502), though it says in the txt that using recent builds instead of the suggested one should only fuck up some sprite visuals (which I, in fact, didn't notice at all). Also, I played with Polymost just like recommended in the text file.
If anyone wants to investigate the problem, I'd like to thank you in advance. Otherwise, I guess I'll have to replay the whole level.
We never had any crashes with the map, and I at least played on the newest eduke32. Whenever you're playing a mod with a map and it crashes, the first thing you should do if possible is play the map without the mod.
If anyone wants to investigate the problem, I'd like to thank you in advance. Otherwise, I guess I'll have to replay the whole level.
The crash seems to be caused by actor 1630, which is the transporter star (either code or compiler bug). Dunno if there are any being spawned by the mod though.
Jan Satcitananda, on 26 December 2017 - 10:16 PM, said:
The crash seems to be caused by actor 1630, which is the transporter star (either code or compiler bug). Dunno if there are any being spawned by the mod though.
Well, the sprites for it in the mod are changed (as far as I know) but otherwise none of them should be spawned just randomly.
Thanks for some clarification at least. I'll do some further investigation to decide whether to try and replay the level with the mod or without it. Guess I'll have to start over anyway...
So I stopped giving shits about the problem (why bother myself with that if a quick replay takes much less time?) and just replayed the map without the mod. This time it took me about 27 min (including the rest of the map up from where my previous playthrough left off).
I think I've pretty much told everything about my impression by the level in the first post. The only thing I'm gonna ask is, who did the reactor section?! First time I ever saw a literal 3-dimensional reactor structure in Duke3D (the spritework was really nice).
Micky C, on 26 December 2017 - 10:06 PM, said:
*Cough*
Oh, sorry 'bout forgetting you
This post has been edited by Polunka: 27 December 2017 - 12:08 AM
I think I've pretty much told everything about my impression by the level in the first post. The only thing I'm gonna ask is, who did the reactor section?! First time I ever saw a literal 3-dimensional reactor structure in Duke3D (the spritework was really nice).
Thank you for the feedback! The underwater reactor area was the first contribution from Mike Norvak:
MikeNorvak, on 25 November 2010 - 09:37 AM, said:
Done it, i used 21 sectors :S but the last sector could be counted as the first sector of the next mapper.
I made a short green area that could be used to connect the yellow access part with the initial church, and this could be usefull for a boss battle...
Took me about 45mins, knowing the level of skill involved, I'm going to hold back a bit less
Some spoilers..
Some really nice build pornography here, however some times there were maybe a little bit too many sacrifices with the effects taking center stage just to show off some gimmick instead of game play. It was still a risk worth taking as it had some really original ideas to deliver.
Still, some sections like the "paste" area were a bit too vague and ended up suffering as it seemed to desperately pull some strings to get the mechanic working, should have had that text in another place for example.
Despite all this, I still appreciated the effort behind it but I did have to cheat a bit in mapster to see where to use that tag.
Another vague part was the tank, cool as heck with the tools available but it really needed custom code to shine properly as operating it wasn't very intuitive: i.e. usermaps these days have so many decorative switches/viewscreens that I wouldn't rely on those 100% anymore, not your fault, but it also can be worked around. Still, this whole contraption was top notch and I think I figured out everything else (effects) out pretty quickly but not this. Haven't studied it but it does indeed look nasty and one of those things that not even the mapper himself wants to touch once it's working
In short: A pretty ambitious map but also due to being just a map, it suffered a bit from trying to binge on with resources. Still a very memorable and enjoyable map ! Thanks guys!
Spoiler
Is the weapon a swingdoor sector that happens to be joined with a tiny sector in the void and you just trigger this swingdoor to move away?
Meaning it would practically make the child sectors glitch out of view, Seems like LEBuild would allow this sort of nextwall abuse for child sectors to make it visible?
Text seems to be in sync with the doors using rotate rise and some thing sector slices and text.. Slowly coming apart..
Loads of smoke and mirrors here, nice work!
I almost forgot to nitpick on one more thing: the Overlord at the end actually has a chance to roam over the little water hole and sink beneath the icy surface. That happened to me and he couldn't do a damn thing (his missiles would instantly die out after spawning and hitting the icy ceiling of the underwater sector).
I almost forgot to nitpick on one more thing: the Overlord at the end actually has a chance to roam over the little water hole and sink beneath the icy surface. That happened to me and he couldn't do a damn thing (his missiles would instantly die out after spawning and hitting the icy ceiling of the underwater sector).
I got it to do that a few times.
Once or twice it got stuck underwater and couldn't get out of the sector with the hole. In these instances, its head was not visible and it couldn't shoot rockets.
A couple times it got underwater and was able to roan around freely, chase me, and shoot rockets.
A few times it went into the water and walked right back out.
Since it wasn't a 100% chance of it become stuck and unable to attack - I didn't bother mentioning it.
Consider it a chance for a tactical advantage and making use of the terrain if you are having trouble defeating it in normal combat.
Still, this whole contraption was top notch and I think I figured out everything else (effects) out pretty quickly but not this. Haven't studied it but it does indeed look nasty and one of those things that not even the mapper himself wants to touch once it's working
If you're interested about object appearance/disappearance effect, it involves tricky joining of non-adjacent sectors and placing objects inside a very fast ring-shaped swing door sector which gets out of view instantly, making the sectors inside it invisible. The effect works in reverse as well.
The map took me about 50 minutes, missed 2 secrets. I played the map 2 times, first time was in classic and second time in polymost (after noticing the visual glitches and reading the txt file ).
Anway, fun map! As a mapper, it's very interesting to see all these different approaches in 1 map. In terms of textures and geometry there's a lot of creativity on display here.
Some great usage of slopes, for example the very first room and later on there's the sewage facility. And that's without mentioning all the special effects.
That mirror wall was fantastic, as well as the tank. I don't even want to know how exactly you guys pulled those off without additional coding.
The map felt coherent enough for me, even though I could notice the individual styles of each mapper.
I agree that there could have been more viewscreens in some places to guide you, but in the end I never got stuck for a long time so it's not a big issue.
The slightly unlinear gameplay works well, no complaints in terms of balance. Had a few tight situations, but there's always enough healh.
Jan Satcitananda, on 28 December 2017 - 01:17 AM, said:
If you're interested about object appearance/disappearance effect, it involves tricky joining of non-adjacent sectors and placing objects inside a very fast ring-shaped swing door sector which gets out of view instantly, making the sectors inside it invisible. The effect works in reverse as well.
Thanks! Pretty much what i figured in spoiler tags.
Clever use of that.
Unfortunately, due to the amount of bugs experienced during the play through of this map I am unable to complete it. I must have some really bad luck. I imagine the people who posted previous to me have successfully completed it. However, I've located some areas where the map where it just kills me and where loading the Tank just doesn't actually work. I have had to watch a YouTube video found here: to see how it was suppose to play through. There definitely are some very original ideas and some nice looking locations with such limitations on sector use. It's too bad it doesn't play out for me. I can offer my saved game if anyone wants to try using my game. Oh, perhaps some of the problems come from the fact that My Eduke version is: EDuke32 r6495 I remember the readme.txt saying something about using an older version of the game. I'll review the readme again. But that still doesn't correct some of the sector killing sections. I'll try and note down the sectors in question.
This post has been edited by Paul B: 01 January 2018 - 12:56 PM
Played it. I gave up during the first time, but once I solved the hardest puzzle I finished the map in like 20 minutes during the second play. It's a very interesting map to play, considering the concept and limitiations of it. Lots of interesting build tricks and design decisions, and it's easy to figure out who-did-what. However, it's also a very sad map to play, once you realise that most of these mappers is not part of a community anymore. It's like seeing a ghost, and that's a shame.
Shame for everybody except Zykov Eddy, who's a major asshole.
thank you for finishing and releasing this map. I remember adding 20 sectors to it a couple of times back in a time that feels like a decade ago, so it feels super nice seeing it out for the public to enjoy after all this time. your Last Pissed Time-esque contribution really turned it into a work of art, or so I can see from the video posted above. I don't even have a computer with Duke anymore, let alone any time I could potentially devote to the game, but every once in a while I check this place and MSDN to see what the community is up to, and I really wish I could play and map for Duke again - I miss it, so this thread was a sweet surprise to run into. way cool
Updated to the latest version of Eduke and started the level over. I was successfully able to place the canon onto the Tank & load the ammo. For some reason my first play through using a slightly outdated version of Eduke wouldn't load the tank. Since updating to the latest version I attempted to make the Tank fail again and I wasn't able to. I'm not sure what I did the first time for it not to load or if it was just a problem with the Eduke version I was using. Anyway, there were many nice details that stood out about this map. Here's a break down of what I did and did not like.
1) If the fountain of water receives a blast from an RPG missle the water fountain shrinks in size. However, the invisible platforms still remain for Duke to make it across but it's visually deceiving.
2) Really enjoyed the level layout, progression & the peep holes revealing glimpses of what laid ahead.Very well done! All areas really tied together nicely considering there were so many different inspirations. Interesting and good use of one sided walls. I felt the flow as Gary Potter would say:
**** WARNING *** I wasn't sure how to place my text or photo's in a spoiler tag area so my post will contain spoilers below.
3) The AI & weapon placement was some of the best i've seen in a user map. Great job!
However, I wasn't fond of finding devastator ammo and no gun. Or the one secret in the map that contains devastator ammo but no gun to use it with. I would have provided the devastator earlier on with the devastator ammo or changed out the supplies as to not mislead the player to believe they've missed out on something.
A minor problem with an unintended slopped squishing sector shown in the image below.
An incorrect texture assignment to the top of the lockers in an image below.
A minor texture alignment problem where the devastator ammo is kept in an image below.
4) Another thing that bugged me was the multi-tiered elevator. It was buggy and sometimes it would cast Duke into an endless shaft you couldn't get out of without clipping out. While it was an interesting concept it is too glitchy to rely on. I would have avoided using that effect as it can totally prevent level progression when trapped.
5) Once the Boss falls into the under water area it is almost impossible to get in and out of the water area without getting squished / dying.
Overall, it was a lot of fun to play and definitely had a Doom like undertone to it. Some of the special effects reminded me a lot of what the Oostrum brother's and High Treason pulled off in the past but this definitely had its own unique spin.
Attached thumbnail(s)
This post has been edited by Paul B: 07 January 2018 - 09:06 AM
Updated to the latest version of Eduke and started the level over. I was successfully able to place the canon onto the Tank & load the ammo. For some reason my first play through using a slightly outdated version of Eduke wouldn't load the tank. Since updating to the latest version I attempted to make the Tank fail again and I wasn't able to. I'm not sure what I did the first time for it not to load or if it was just a problem with the Eduke version I was using. Anyway, there were many nice details that stood out about this map. Here's a break down of what I did and did not like.
I'm glad that you've managed to make the map work correctly. Can't exactly tell why it was glitching for you first time. Thank you for the constructive feedback. There are some minor issues we overlooked while testing the map. Although it was in the making for years, nobody was working on it most of the time. I've fixed most problems with visuals and tried to make the flow more consistent, still the game design is not totally flawless. There might be situations when the player gets trapped, such as jumping into the well after finding all runes but not collecting the yellow keycard, or going into that endless elevator trip you mentioned.
Jan Satcitananda, on 07 January 2018 - 12:35 PM, said:
Although it was in the making for years, nobody was working on it most of the time.
Yeah it's a miracle this thing came out at all, let alone in the relatively polished and consistent state it did. I thank Jan Satcitananda again for getting it out the door.
Help
Duke4.net
DNF #1
Duke 3D #1
20sccbp.zip (200.54K)
).
