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.