Quick
Statistics
|
| Working
Title: |
The
Abyss Bridgeway |
| Version: |
1.2 |
| Author: |
Christopher
L. Canfield |
| Target Machine:
|
PIII 800, 128 MB Ram, onboard OpenGL |
| Game Type: |
Single,
FFA, Team, Tourney |
| Weapons: |
1
Shotgun, 1 Rocket Launcher, 1 Plasma Gun,
2 Grenade Launchers, 1 Rail Gun, 1 Quad Damage,
1 Haste, 1 Flight |
| Opponents:
|
Hossman
Lucy Razor Daemia Stripe Tankjr |
| Editor Used:
|
Q3Radiant
202, Q3Build 2.0, Pakscape 0.08 |
| Brushes: |
2147 |
| Entities: |
400 |
| Build Time: |
3
Weeks |
| Compile Time: |
4
Hours |
|
|
 |
 |
 |
See other pictures of this level
|
1. Overly ambitious landscapes
Bishop Richard Poore and the architect Elias de Derham built
the main body of the Salisbury Cathedral in England in an
astonishingly fast 38 years with 300 men. I budgeted two weeks
to build my cathedral. Optimism can be a wonderful motivating
factor, but don't try to do everything. A large amount of
time and artistic effort was indulged on the façade, a region
of space which sets a beautiful tone for the area but lacks
any gameplay relevance. On such a tight time budget, the face
of the cathedral should have either replaced another interactive
gameplay area, or the bridges should have been made internal.
Add to this the burden of creating a working tower (Q3Radiant's
train support is infuriatingly buggy) and trying to convince
the robots to understand said train, and you have quite a
lot of work cut out for a level that should only require one
set of art resources.
2. Mixed gameplay styles.
Having too many ideas have killed more levels than having
too few. In the case of The Abyss Bridgeway, the idea
was to create a fun level that showcased knowledge of all
parts of the Q3A engine for the benifit of a particular potential
employer, encompassing player vs player, player vs computer,
and player vs environment in an über arena perfect to suit
any pleasures. In other words, depending upon preference people
were going to like parts of the level, and hate the rest.
Any of the elements taken in isolation, such as avoiding bouncy
grenade showers, running into rocketblasts, and creeping through
creepy clock towers are entertaining endeavors. When this
means that you aren't actually fragging anybody and therefore
are losing the game, the enjoyment factor suffers. Re-done
for personal gain, the level would encompass a much more focused
subset of Q3A's abilities.
3. Prototyping by implementing.
Resist the urge to start projects by working on that interestingly
shaped table you are dying to get your hands dirty with. Levels
should be prototyped well ahead of implementation to balance
gameplay, speed up pacing, and avoid reduntant or discarded
work. Now that this level's play dynamics are understood,
there are several things that could be altered to improve
pacing. For example, the tower could be spun off and the map
refocused around the middle of the cathedral. Rather than
fighting to entice the player into following the linear level
layout of the original plan, this would enhance the overall
coherency while increasing combat rates and user enjoyment.
4. Designing for multiplayer.
Thanks to some generous "do not enter" textures, the bots
now have the appearance of understanding that falling to their
death beneath the bridges is an undesirable thing. However,
the intricate train model is far beyond their comprehension.
The lava texture at the bottom of the tower swaps out for
a teleporter in the single player game to compensate somewhat
for this lack of direction, but fighting with bots in this
region is still sloppy at best. They don't / can't know how
to use the grenade shower (and adding an attractor would only
encourage them to jump to the bottom of the shaft), they don't
know how to fly, they don't understand the train model, and
they tend to be unsuccessful at avoiding the rockets on the
top platform. These are all things created from the player
vs. level school of design, rather than the player vs. player
with a facilitating level design that ID embraced when abandoning
the single player campaigns of Quake 2. In short, while your
map is ultimately being designed for the human experience,
you should never forget the other inhabitants' navigational
needs.
"most importantly the level is fun."
Despite certain shortcomings, The Abyss Bridgeway has
been a successful endeavor. While there are some pacing differences
between areas, the player is free to pick and choose as they
want to play. The architecture is very attractive, the gameplay
is well balanced in a human vs human matchup, and most importantly
the level is fun. Elias de Derham would be pleased.
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