My first episode

[underTaker]

Hello.

I've uploaded first map of episode here. It's my favourite one. Im still testing, and adding details on other maps. It is very near to be finished. Now most of work awaits for 3rd map, which i don't really like, but maybe it is only my feeling. Have fun.

Let me know what you think about it! Be honest

[ck3D]

I completed it in 20 minutes, design- and layout-wise there is a lot to like , but also some fairly odd bugs or flaws that could have easily been avoided for the most part,

I spotted a few misaligned wall textures mainly in corridors and in the basement, and some areas (such as the bathrooms in the sushi bar) that were too cramped, but those are just common beginner mistakes that could easily be fixed,

a more annoying error was that for some reason the sector behind the second blue door kept hurting me and making me lose health so quickly that in order to be able to cross it since I was low on health I had to cheat and DNKROZ my way through it, a quick DNSHOWMAP investigation pointed out to me that it might be due to a sector-over-sector bug, seeing as technically it's located right above the basement with all the eggs and slimers I had killed beforehand I'm assuming that I might have been suffering from the slime residues laying on the floor of the basement (I was using Dukeplus) even though I was a story higher, idk it's an oddity. I also witnessed some slimers and newbeasts warping from a story to another by crossing the white lines but that's an old game bug that doesn't even affect the gameplay much, so I didn't mind that,

and last but not least managed to complete this level without having to use the red key I found, so I'm pretty sure I did something wrong at some point, just in case it's not meant to happen I'll just point out that the player can follow the items on the conveyor belt sector into the sushi bar.

I thought the gameplay was quite harshly balanced as well, with not that much basic weapon ammo at the player's disposal to face the hordes of tough enemies towards the end, although I have to say I enjoyed the experience, blasting away all these lizmen and commanders in the sushi bar with my RPG, pipebombs and devastator was really fun, something enhanced by the (fitting) ambient sounds that actually made me felt trapped there. Maybe the enemy placement could use some more work in some areas though. I also thought it was a bit weird to find keys and general items in destroyed walls with no rooms behind them but that's a purely esthetical comment

[underTaker]

Thanks for comment.

That bug in behind second blue doors was pretty strange, i -plaing witout duke plus- havent expirienced such thing. Maybe it was becouse of ORGANTICs there. I don't know why they was there (maybe i was experimenting with something?), i've deleted them.

I've also spotted bug on stairs from first floor (where you can pick up second blue card) to second floor (where office is) - lower floor blinks for a moment when walking. I don't know why is it happening, and i just can't fix that. I've already lowered lower's floor ceiling, but that didn't helped.

I've also found thoose few unaligned textures (thanks for saying about them - i have such things too), and fixed it where i've spotted it.

Red card is in sushi bar in circulating water. That might be my little mistake - it might be hard to find.

I've posted updated version here. Let me know if that first floor bug still happens.

[ck3D]

The bug no longer happens (mind you, I played without DukePlus this time) in this new version.

What I meant about the red card is that the player doesn't even need to go to the end of the sushi bar to unlock his way to the kitchen - by using the good old jump / crouch technique he can sneak into the little tunnels in that little circulating water stream, and reach the kitchen right away. I deliberately prevented myself from doing this this time around in order to realize how that last section of the level was meant to be played - the first time I did it out of curiosity and ended up continuing to the end of the level without realizing that I had skipped an important bit of it, so I'd say it's a pretty big flaw, maybe you should try lowering that sector even more.

Also when the ceiling collapses in the building with all the Duke Nukem II game boxes, it looks like it could be fairly easy for a quick player to run back and get back to the main room and get stuck, I didn't try, but it looked doable, so maybe you should make the effect a little bit faster as well, add a GPSPEED or something.

Here are a few more misaligned textures I found :





Also I take back the harsh gameplay comment, the map was much much easier to play this second time around, probably because I knew where to go and where all the items were.

[Forge]

Even though the map was a bit tight on ammo, and especially health, I really like the layout and if it wasn't for the limited health I would have really enjoyed it. I dealt with the limited ammo because you provided a lot of weapons and running out of bullets was compensated by it.
There were some areas that needed a little more work:

Misaligned textures
This area where the player can see the keycard should be blocked, the player can get squished

[Forge]

These were just a couple examples of misaligned textures, there were several more.

Shading could have been a bit better. Two walls at 90 degree angles from each other should not have the same shade.
All the bathrooms were way too cramped.

[Forge]

The room with the three view screen and one switch. Activating the switch drops part of the ceiling and unlocks the room with the hidden devastator right before the sewer.

The player can get out the window before the ceiling drops.

The keycard in the previous attached pic. The player could always go back the way they came through the vents and bypass that part of the map after grabbing the key. That path should be blocked, unless you don't care which way the player goes.

[underTaker]

Thank you guys for testing it. I've fixed things, that you told. I've also added blinking light near door heading from first floor to office. I've also prevented player to use crouch-jump bug in that water area by simply blocking that wall. Items can flow normally, but player can't :-)

I will try to avoid such bugs in next maps.

[Mikko_Sandt]

I'd make the shadows in the first room stronger and increase the volume of the ambient sound there. You should get rid of the blinking light right outside because it fucks up the sky. The first hole behind the Guilty/Innocent sign has misaligned textures and the window next to the Duke 2 boxes does not block projectiles.

Anyways, some of the spawns were a bit excessive and many areas were too cramped for RPG fights (I was a bit short on ammo and health) and Commanders. I'd make the two bosses near the Nukebutton stayput because if one of them falls down, there's hardly any room to fight (I used Steroids to jump past him).

[underTaker]

@Mikko_Sandt - I've done what you suggested, and it is better now i think, now i will have to check rest of map a bit more closely.

Thank you all for checking it!

[Deathlord666]

Nice,Good To See More High Quality Maps