DM-Sweet-Death approaches 1000 downloads, next map in alpha1

973 downloads that I know of, we'll break 1000 tomorrow, and that's in less than two weeks! I even got the offer to map professionally for some children's game, though on an engine I don't know. I had to decline as well, but, WOW!

On the other front there has been quite some progress. I have put up an alpha test site with an early concept build. In general people commented quite favourably, with the three most prominent issues being accessability of the top level, non-intuitive jump pads and weapon placement.

After quite some experiments with combinations of lifts and ramps I have decided for alpha2 to stick with jump pads, but with special ones. Basically they are indicated by a mesh, but actually have jump pad actors on all sides. The idea is, that when you approach the jump pad from any side, it will propel you in the direction of your movement. So on one spot you actually have 4-6 jump pads. The bots like the idea and it should fix issues one and two. We'll see if this makes the map too bouncy. It positively accelerates gameplay, though.

Issue three is, that hitscan weapons should be placed at the lower level and flak/rocket launcher at the top. I've changed that as well.

At the moment I redesign the atrium structure to facilitate top-down movement. Basically it should always be possible to drop down one level. The blue area is already changed, the red area comes next. I am not sure what to do with green and pink, though. Probably I keep pink being more interior-style (quite like gameplay there, especially the nasty surprises when you go for the health in the basement). Green needs to be fleshed out more, though. It's a bit lifeless there.

Other experiments I've done, were with textures. The skybox I already have, suggests that stone, if used at all, should be of a light to middle blue/cyan. I have tried to recolor some retail textures and found, that the blue's interaction with colored light is horrible. Nothing I haven't already read in one of Gui's comments to some map a long time ago, but hey, you have to try it always yourself :-) I'll invest some more time, but most likely this means, that the map will use a metal or shiptech theme, with humanoid architecture still being an option.

Lesson learned

This night (I mean it literally :) I have changed weapon and item locations a bit, put more things to the upper story, but the result is only a little bit better. Fact is, that it's very fast to get down by jumping and slow to get up over the ramps. No wonder that all action concentrates on the ground floor. I need jump pads!

Well, I'm not sure how much of the layout has to be changed to accommodate the jump pads. Maybe I'll have to replace some ramps. The problem is, that ramps of course wind up along the walls, thus taking away the logical places for jump pads. Should I combine lifts and jump pads when replacing a ramp? Sounds promising. Lifts from ground to first floor, jump pads from ground to upper floor, ramps in two of the areas. Hmm ... seems like a major overhaul.

Feedback, next map

DM-Sweet-Death is now up on 5 sites and has altogether at least 716 downloads so far. Not too shabby for a week :-) Feedback is mixed. The hardcore crowd on Nalicity seems to hate it, in general reactions are very good. I even got an invitation for a mod project. I had to decline, but I do feel honored.

On Saturday I have begun work on the next map, this time a rather small deathmatch map, run-down sci-fi/industrial (not really decided yet) with a quite interesting skybox. I have a layout that is very much oriented on those DM maps that are commonly referred to as having good flow. Well, items are set, pathing is done and the first time I tried, the bots played like shit. All action on the ground floor. Oh well, I'll have to shuffle weapons around tomorrow.

The idea is, to get the map playtested before it is even properly textured, lit and decorated, i.e. at a time when it would not hurt to throw it away altogether. We'll see.

Up on Levels4you

Well, things go fast now. DM-Sweet-Death is up on Levels4you and has already 8 downloads there. I really wait for the reviews.

Up on Nalicity, review requested

DM-Sweet-Death is now up on Nalicity. I've just added some map information there and requested a review. I have also submitted it for a review at insite. They prefer Nalicity as download site, thus I had to wait.

Updates to my mapping page

I've just added substantially to my mapping site. There is a whole new page about gameplay-related feedback to DM-Sweet-Death. It's quite amazing to see people's reactions and get a feeling for how this map fares in the real world.

First advertisements in the forums done

I have posted the announcement in the Atari forums and on Unreal Playground. So far reactions are a mixed bag. The visuals seem to please, but two people claim bad gameplay, basically flow-related. We'll see.

The next days I'll submit it to NaliCity and Insite for reviews. Btw, it's now up on Mapraiders, too.

DM-SweetDeath for UT2004 is uploaded to Unreal Playground !!!

I did it. i really did it. I've just uploaded DM-Sweet-Death to Unreal Playground. Now I only have to announce it all over the place. Oh well. I guess, that's work for tomorrow.

Website is done

Time to go to bed now if I think that I have to get up in 1.5 hours :-)

The website for DM-SweetDeath is up and has a lot of new screenshots, some statistics and the whole boring construction history. Read it at your own risk.

A new logo

Just me and my spider Muku-Muku :-)

Kind of instability of blogger.com?

On friday I posted an entry, it hung for a minute or two, I closed the browser and now it seems the whole blog is empty. Funny. Let's have a look if publishing a new post restores everything.

Edit: republishing did the trick. Oh well :-/

Last adjustments of weapons and ammo

Today I did some adjustments to weapons and ammo in an effort to get better distributions. Doing that I found a rocket launcher ammo pickup that was so near a step that it actually could not be picked up. Need some last systematic checks.

The next two days I'll be in Salzburg for "Pfingsten Barock". In the meantime a friend of mine checks the map for any errors I may have missed. I suppose I'll be ready to release the map on May 17th or 18th.

And just if you wonder what a "golden sky" would be :-) 

Warm sand ... 

Never forget - don't panic

Yesterday for a short time I started to panic. My old friend the ***hole ... BSP-hole, I mean :-)

It's amazing how fragile BSP is. I had quite liberally added loose floortiles all over the place by subtracting the volume of one or more tiles and placing static mesh tiles. Well, obviously that was some BSP cuts too many. Luckily I was quite sure the BSP hole had not been there before, thus removing some subtractive brushes was all it took to fix it. Disturbing anyway. No wonder people tend to base their maps on static meshes nowadays. BSP is a QA nightmare.

Apart from that I'm progressing quite nicely. Today I have added some intro lyrics

Warm sand under a golden sky, sweet like honey.
On this lonely island death waits in the ancient fortress atop of the hill.
Will you dare to enter?

and the material sequence for the level preview. A little bit over the top with 10 images, but it looks real nice :-)

The map has 27 player starts and 15 weapons. I recommend it for 6 to 16 players. Everything less and you feel real lonely. Maybe I make a version with only the core of the fortress reachable, i.e. restrict player movement to the part that is based on Adam "Senn" Bellefeuil's "Agony & Ecstasy" for Quake III. I could use another skybox for that. I have created so many since I've started experimenting with Terragen. Actually, when in its beginnings this map was "Agony 2k3 Ecstasy", I had a different skybox, late morning on a sunny but stormy day. Still one of my favourites.

A screenshot from high above, just as a teaser :-) 

DM-SweetDeath for UT2004 finished, well, almost

It's been a long time. I began this map in July 2003, had it in beta after six months, lost interest, got back, played Doom 3, Half Life 2, Sacred, and now I'm back again.

Today I did some finishing touches, added a boilerplate with credits, some loose floortiles, etc. The only things left to do are to update the level preview images and some cube maps. I guess the map will be up on unrealplayground.com this week.