Now, wait, hear me out.

Recently I tried out Left for Dead 2 and I was totally gangbusters to start developing content for it. I played it for a few hours and then dove into the level editor and started hammering out buildings and figuring out entities and how everything works. This led to my wanting to make a survival map which has blossomed into my wanting to create a campaign which has led me to my inevitable destination – a partially built level and waning enthusiasm. I see how much work I have completed but I also see how much work lies ahead. Blech.

I realized that I’ve almost forgotten how to have fun with games. I’m so eager to jump into content creation now that I don’t just appreciate the game for what it is. I don’t have the patience for magic anymore; I NEED to see behind the curtain and I need to tame it.

So with that knowledge I’m now going to start getting back in touch with games and just playing them for the fun of it. I’m going to stop tearing off the hood and resist my inner temptations to know how everything works right off the bat.

The level designer in me wants to know what’s under the hood. The game player in me wants to put the top down and just drive. I think there’s room for a good balance here.

I’ll post a link to download the pack once it’s ready for public consumption!

Now to get back to ToeTag coding…

So you log into the site and click a map name. You’re then thrown into the editor and off you go. You could work on your levels from anywhere you had access to a web browser and you wouldn’t have to worry about anything being on the local machine other than a working mouse and keyboard.

Of course, compiling the maps would be an issue. I suppose the compiling could take place on the server and then the results could be copied into whichever local directory you specify in your site profile. So running the game would require a local Quake install but not editing.

You could even turn it into a social experiment where people could make maps public instead of private, meaning that anyone who logs into the site can work on that level. If you did it right, they could even be editing it at the same time.

This would lead to community/team based speed mapping events.

I’m not sure this would ever get off the ground and I certainly don’t have the technical means to do it – but it won’t get out of my head so I’m purging it here!

I like the change in mindset on this level. Whenever I’m building something I have a sub-process running in the back of my head which is always scanning and looking for ways to build things with fewer brushes and pattern matching to find brushes that I could merge into a single brush. Conservation is key!

In other news, I finally took part in a speed mapping event. The levels will be released in a pack on Monday so I’ll post a note here when that happens. Speed mapping was fun! You don’t really have time to fuss too much with textures or lighting, you just have to come up with scenarios involving the theme. This time around it was “Don’t touch that!”. My map is a fairly literal interpretation on that theme but it was my first time so give me time to get creative.

I leave you with my NXE avatar…

This level was an extension of an idea that I had about creating a Quake level in an abstract way. Keep the usual shapes but take away the textures. I like how it turned out and it was great fun to experiment with using color in a much stronger way than is normally done in a Quake level.

This level is being released as a mod because I wrote a bunch of QuakeC to support it. To play it:

1) Create a directory in your Quake directory called “whiteroom”
2) Copy the “progs.dat” and “maps” directory inside the ZIP into that new directory.
3) Start Quake with the command line: “-game whiteroom +map whiteroom”

That should do it! Here are the downloads:

Player Pack
(contains the level and the associated progs.dat)

Developer Pack
(contains the source materials – the map source, the QuakeC source code and the WAD)

Enjoy!

Not sure when it’ll be done but safe to say it shouldn’t be too long.

This is requiring a lot of custom texture work (you don’t see it all here, of course, there are some surprises that I’m holding back). It’s fun! But a lot of work at the same time.

Slayer.

There, I said it. Their music is loud, brutal, and filled with the sort of driving energy you need to kick your creative brain out of bed and get things moving. The drums alone are enough to do it for me (nobody pounds out double bass like Lombardo) but add in the vocals and guitars and we’re home.

Whenever I’m feeling creatively drained, I double click on “Disciple”, “Payback”, “Raining Blood” or “Behind the Crooked Cross” and just let things take their natural course.

I used to think that Venom was the ideal level design music but I’m switching to Slayer.

Looks like “Payback” is up next. Gotta get back to work…

For my own piece of mind – I’m going to
Tear your fucking eyes out
Rip your fucking flesh off
Beat you till you’re just a fucking lifeless carcass
Fuck you and your progress
Watch me fucking regress
You were meant to take the fall – now you’re nothing
Payback’s a bitch motherfucker