Showing posts with label quake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label quake. Show all posts

Sunday, February 4, 2024

new Quake map: "Taught By Thirst" for Remix Jam

Taught By Thirst is a new Mesoamerican themed single player Quake map that I made for Remix Jam, a 3 week community level design event where we all adapted multiplayer maps from other games for Quake. 

The definition of "remix" was kept loose on purpose, and anyway some of the fun is in figuring out where the map came from... although that's not the case with mine: I clearly adapted de_aztec by Chris "narby" Auty from Counter-Strike.

In this post I will talk about my inspiration and intent. I also explain what happens in the level. If you want, play it before reading this post. This is your last SPOILER WARNING.

Thursday, September 29, 2022

new Quake map: There's a Certain Slant of Light

These are design notes about my process and intent, and it may spoil what happens in the level.

I made my new single player Quake map "There a Certain Slant of Light" for the Quake Brutalist Jam, a 2 1/2 week long map jam focused around making chunky modernist concrete themed levels.

I actually made most of this level around two years ago. I wasn't really happy with it, so I never released it. Though when I fixed it up for this jam, I ended up keeping most of the layout and geometry. Maybe it wasn't such a bad map after all? 

The two big changes I made were the texturing and the monster placement / player flow...

Friday, August 12, 2022

new Quake map: Breakfast Under The Balloons

I made a new single player Quake 1 map called "Breakfast Under The Balloons" for the community map pack Coppertone Summer Jam 2, where mappers were encouraged to make sunny summer-y themed maps using the popular community rebalancing mod Copper.

I like making sunny maps anyway, and the first CTSJ back in 2020 was when I made my first Quake map, so the event has a special place in my heart.

This post details some of my process and intent, and spoils what happens in the map. You may want to play it first if you care about that.

Wednesday, June 15, 2022

Postcards from Quakeland, 2022


Some random notes and thoughts from Quake modding land, in this cold wintery June of 2022:
  • Community Hubs
  • Official Mods
  • The Future of My Quake Maps

Friday, April 1, 2022

new Quake map: The Close And Holy Darkness

This post spoils what happens in my Quake map. If you care about that, play it first.

I made another Quake map -- this one was for a map jam called Retro Jam 7, where we all spent 2 weeks making level design homages to the greatest hits. 

The theme here was "Koohoo" or "The Castle of Koohoo" (2001) by Vondur. The theming felt very fresh for Quake at the time, taking notes (and maybe a few textures) from Unreal. The novel use of greens and blues, as well as the outdoor hub layout, contrasted a lot with the browns and reds of Quake 3 Arena inspired aesthetics popular at the time.

Of course, I figured everyone else in the jam was going to lean on those dark greens and blues, so instead I opted for a rosy morning brown type of mood.

Wednesday, February 16, 2022

new Quake map: "Heart Like A Bird's Nest"

Heart Like A Bird's Nest is my new Quake map made for the weekend level design jam "Quake Speedmap Snack Pack 2" organized by Fairweather a few weeks ago.

This jam placed specific constraints on submissions, asking designers to map for a "slot" with a specific texture theme and weapon progression. I chose slot 1 which represents the start of a campaign with a "cr8 base" theme (grungy brick / concrete / metal industrial sci-fi) and shotgun / nailgun (+ optional super shotgun / grenade launcher secrets).

I started by blocking out a small arena. The arena has a little observation deck with a little floor hatch to drop down into the fight when the player's ready. I wanted a typical 2010s era play pattern where the player can safely scope out enemy positions and form a basic plan before getting into it. But I also mess with the player's limited information and hide some enemies underneath the observation deck sometimes, in proper Quake fashion.

Saturday, December 18, 2021

new Quake map: "When There Were Wolves"

I made another Quake map, this time in collaboration with fellow mapper @mrtaufner for the 2021 Quake community Xmas Jam

Taufner handled the initial blockout and gameplay, while I did the art pass and tweaks. (With textures by Makkon as usual.) 

The collaboration here was ideal because I didn't feel like doing gameplay stuff, and Taufner didn't want to art pass, so we exchanged duties and took turns working on the level.

Saturday, September 4, 2021

new Quake map: Tell Me It's Raining

This post spoils what happens in my Quake map. If you care about that, then you should play it first.

NOTE: there are reports that my map crashes FTE Quake, so make sure you use Quakespasm or vkQuake to play. Sorry about that.

"Tell Me It's Raining" is my fifth released Quake single player map, part of the Alkaline Jam where we all made sci-themed "base" maps with a mod kit called Alkaline.

It uses the Makkon sci-fi themed textures as showcased in the stunning Alkaline start hub map -- a major inspiration for this map and I assume other maps in this pack as well. I was also inspired by the Centre Pompidou's copious colorful piping and vast industrial scaffolding. I wanted big chunky shapes draped in warm colors, continuing my tendency to make big sunny Quake maps.

I generally like how the map turned out, but I think I tried to do too much complicated stuff in this one, and miscalculated how players would react.

Wednesday, August 25, 2021

"Quake Renaissance" for Rock Paper Shotgun

For Rock Paper Shotgun, I recently wrote a three-part series "Quake Renaissance".

Part 1 is an industry history of Quake's cursed development at id Software, Part 2 is a primer to 25 years of Quake community modding, and lastly Part 3 is a how-to guide for getting into Quake and enjoying its mods.

This series had some goals:

Tuesday, June 22, 2021

new Quake map: Daughter Drink This Water

My fourth released Quake single player map "Daughter Drink This Water" is now out, as part of a community map jam pack called Sinister625 -- where we all made maps that used only 6 textures, included 2 "surprises" (anything more interesting than monsters spawning), and had only 5 monster types, all in celebration of Quake's 25th anniversary this June.

HOW TO PLAY THE MAP PACK

1. Follow this guide to acquiring Quake and a suitable source port (aka game engine) or try the Quakestarter: The Quake Singleplayer Starter Pack (Windows only). Note that Quakespasm-Spiked is currently regarded as the best engine among single player level designers; avoid DarkPlaces, which hasn't been maintained in years. Also note that it is technically possible to get all the necessary game files legally without buying Quake, but for perceived legal reasons, the community does not distribute everything together in a convenient package.

2. Download and unzip the Sinister625 mod, which will already have all the maps and assets configured. Put the /sinister625/ mod folder in the root of your Quake folder, next to the /id1/ folder.

3. Launch Quakespasm-Spiked (or whatever engine you're using) with the mod directory set to "sinister625"... There are two common ways to do this:

- download a launcher tool like Simple Quake Launcher

- OR create a shortcut with the command line parameter -game sinister625... so the full shortcut target line might read something like "C:/Program Files/.../quakespasm-spiked-win64.exe -game sinister625"

WARNING: the rest of this post are my design notes that spoil what happens in the map...

Tuesday, September 1, 2020

new Quake map: "It Will Be Summer Eventually"

My third Quake map is another multi-level arena, a bit similar to my previous map Smell It In The Street. I made it for Speedmap #210 (SM210), a weekend map jam on the Quake Mapping Discord with a theme of "overgrown" by jam runner Naitelveni.

For this map, I think I did a bit better with combat design. The arenas are a bit more open and free than before, and the encounters have a bit more purpose and push. I also make heavy use of Copper v1.11's improved ogre aiming, fiend jumping, and trigger_monsterjump spawnflags.

Sunday, August 9, 2020

new Quake map: "Smell It In The Street"

I made another Quake map! This one is called "Smell It In The Street" and it was made for the Doom Tintin map jam, a level design jam centered around using Quake mapping community member Tintin's texture pack that samples from Doom 3 textures.

Some brief level design thoughts follow:

Thursday, March 12, 2020

Living in interesting times

Hello all. It's 2020. The world feels... different. Hopefully you're all doing OK!

A recap of what I've been up to --

In these days of social distancing, remote classes, and quarantines, I taught my class about streaming on Twitch... by streaming the class on Twitch. Some writeups:




I'm also getting into Quake 1 mapping. The modern tools are great, the video tutorials are on point, and the community is lovely. Come join us. I recommend Andrew Yoder's comprehensive guide for getting started.


Until next time...
-- R

Sunday, November 4, 2018

The first person shooter is a dad in mid-life crisis

OK I know Heavy Rain isn't an FPS but I like this screenshot so I don't care
Every semester for our introductory Games 101 historical survey class, a different NYU Game Center faculty member presents a survey of a game genre. Matt Parker lectures on sports, Clara Fernandez-Vara talks about adventure games, Mitu Khandaker talks about simulations, and so on.

My personal lecture happens to be on the first person shooter (FPS) genre. In my lecture, I trace five main currents through the FPS genre:

Monday, August 20, 2012

Thirty Flights of Loving, by Brendon Chung.


The first time it happened was in late 2004.

It was 4 AM and I had just completed the "Cradle" level of Thief 3 -- and its complete conceptual brilliance, a ghost story where you must become a ghost, through narrative, through puzzles, through death, through hiding seamlessly from NPCs or "ghosting" in Thief community parlance -- it overwhelmed me and I started laughing uncontrollably, rocking back and forth in my bed. The only sensible response to staring directly into the face of genius was utter insanity.

The second time it happened was a few months ago.

It was noon and I had just completed Brendon Chung's new release, Thirty Flights of Loving.

Monday, February 6, 2012

"Lun3DM5: You'll Shoot Your Eye Out" by Matthew Breit and Andrew Weldon


Flipping through the screenshots, I'm not sure if I would've went with such a noisy concrete texture for this, as it kind of muddies up the real star here -- the ambient occlusion on the surfaces, the subtle lighting. I also would've went with some more color too. Though maybe with this, he wanted to differentiate himself more from Rob Briscoe's Mirrors Edge abstract speedrun-floater level treatments, and break away from the legacy of GeoComp2 with its demand for very plain textures. I guess in the end, the difference is pretty trivial, as we're just two different flavors of modernists.

I'm taking a lighting design class right now, and it's remarkable how useless it is in the context of real-time game lighting solutions that have no concept of bouncing light or glare -- that's partly what an ambient term, SSAO, and HDR are supposed to simulate.

The paradox is even weirder the more I think about it. Commercial lighting design is all about avoiding harsh shadows, but in the days of the Source Engine, people were obsessed with mimicking the pitch-dark high-contrast shadow projections that aren't photorealistic nor terribly flattering nor well-stylized, yet are still subject to the weaknesses of static lighting. (My history: many were upset that Source didn't have stencil shadows like the other engines, unaware that Source's radiosity tool was much more futureproof anyway; Unreal ended up focusing on lightmap baking too.) It was like hitting no birds with two stones.

My lighting design instructor would cry if he knew what most of us have done: letting our technology fetish get in the way of good ol' artistic composition. However, I think he'd be okay with what the boys did on this very pretty level. Maybe I'll show it to him.

Also, I think Matthew "Lunaran" Breit should, um, share his CubeSpew Python script for Maya. Let's protest by joining servers running this map, and standing still. I propose the hashtag #OccupyLunaran.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Dark Past (part 2): On level design, hookers, cybernetic architecture, Tony Hawk and all that converges.


Last time, I mentioned a lot of games that we like for their emergence and "cool stuff that happens" -- but the difference is that games like Thief, or "immersive simulations," actually do something with that emergence.

If, in Grand Theft Auto, you beat up a sex worker to get your money back -- an immersive sim approach would have that hooker tell other hookers about you, and no hookers would ever service you again or help you in missions -- unless maybe you stole a nice car and left it in their parking lot as a gift, or ran over a pimp for them, etc. In this way, all your actions "listen" to each other.

A "hooker map" for GTA4. (Apparently they prefer the MET, Times Square, Long Island City...)
... But GTA doesn't do it because that's not what it's going for. (Too much thoughtfulness in my bowl of destructive mayhem.) And that's okay. But an immersive sim, like the Thief series, does it differently.

What I've always loved about Thief was the level design -- and by level design, I mean mainly the floorplans and complexity of the spaces -- not so much the visuals.

Not that the games are ugly or visually boring, but... Thief II, released in 2000, used essentially the same Dark Engine used in Thief I from 1998. Compare this to more powerful engines as those in Unreal Tournament or Quake 3 Arena, which were released months before in 1999... Thief II was already severely behind from the start. Plus, a lot of the models and animations remained untouched from Thief I, which was smart for production but limited its visual novelty.

Fortunately, "immersive sims" aren't "immersive" through their graphical fidelity or photorealism. (see: immersive fallacy) Rather, they're immersive in how they simulate / simplify the complexity of interlocking systems and the beauty of exploiting these systems or getting caught unaware by them.