[RELEASED] [ut] Return the Heart

[Doublez-Down]

Any chance of a 227 version?

I'd be more than happy to try it out if you want to give me a hand at converting it over. I wasn't able to convert the first map over (couldn't get it to come up at all). Shoot me a PM or something if you have some ideas for converting it over.

[editor Dave]

I just wanted to say a "well done" because it's a pity that alomst no one writes anything about your small project. It is incredible that you built that many good-looking areas in such a short time! But there's one thing you should improve: your skill in building mountains/outdoor terrain. They like quite ugly in comparison with today's standards. I also noticed a lack of ambient sounds. Please add some (more) in order to improve the overall atmosphere. The gameplay was nice. I never had a too little amount of ammo or health. Though, there's space for improvement: Add scripted sequences in order to add variety in the fights. The story was enjoyable. The idea of carrying the diamond and placing it at the throne in the end was cool.

All in all I liked your mappack and that's not normality since most maps bore me (even from popular packs).

[Doublez-Down]

Thanks for the comments, glad you enjoyed it.

[Sarevok]

I'm suprised there aren't more comments either. Well UB's review pretty much hit the nail on the head with this pack, though I would of scored it a little higher. Arch is pretty solid, but gameplay needs the most work. Way to much hit a switch, hit a button, hit a switch, hit a button...etc and most of the enemies are right in front of you just waiting to be attacked, though you did use a few spawn points. My advice is to learn more about alarm points, counters, dispatchers, patrol points, jumpers, exploding walls, special events, triggered lights, etc... you can really do some neat stuff with the enemies and add to the gameplay. You want the enemies to be busy and active and the world around you to be alive with stuff happening. Considering this is your first SP release you did a great job so be proud of yourself DD

[Doublez-Down]

I'm suprised there aren't more comments either. Well UB's review pretty much hit the nail on the head with this pack, though I would of scored it a little higher. Arch is pretty solid, but gameplay needs the most work. Way to much hit a switch, hit a button, hit a switch, hit a button...etc and most of the enemies are right in front of you just waiting to be attacked, though you did use a few spawn points. My advice is to learn more about alarm points, counters, dispatchers, patrol points, jumpers, exploding walls, special events, triggered lights, etc... you can really do some neat stuff with the enemies and add to the gameplay. You want the enemies to be busy and active and the world around you to be alive with stuff happening. Considering this is your first SP release you did a great job so be proud of yourself DD

Thanks. I'm just scratching the surface in terms of gameplay, so hopefully my next project will get better in that area.

[Lightning Hunter]

Thanks. I'm just scratching the surface in terms of gameplay, so hopefully my next project will get better in that area.

Hey DD, not that I'm trying to promote my work here or anything - but check the map I made for the Deja Vu pack, "usp-03-naveed-lh". The map obtained popular vote purely because of the gameplay (I really didn't have time to put that much work into the architecture). You can use that map as an example for alarmpoints, patrolpoints, scripted events, etc.. I think I used pretty much every method to create an ambush in that map. I've always wished that more mappers would create more interactive environments, like Tower of Shrakitha. It was partially Shrakitha that inspired me to make my own USP map so interactive.

Looking forward to seeing all future work from you.

[Sarevok]

Hope I didn't overload you with to much info DD since you're still new to SP mapping. I just regret not learning that stuff earlier in my 10+ years of mapping. You wouldn't believe some of the stuff you can do.
LH's map is definitely a good one to look at along with Shrakitha, Xidia, Seven Bullets, and Hexaphet.

[Lightning Hunter]

LH's map is definitely a good one to look at along with Shrakitha, Xidia, Seven Bullets, and Hexaphet.

Yes, and definitely don't put my map above those!

I only mentioned my map, because I know for sure it has plenty of alarmpoints, patrolpoints, dispatchers, etc. that can be looked at and used as examples.

I've thought about creating an article someday about making environments more interactive in Unreal. I'd say about 90% of all user-made maps out there turn out bland because the mappers focus more on architecture than gameplay. I'm by no means a professional mapper, but I do recognize this persistent problem among mappers, and have an idea of how it could be abolished.

[Legendslayer222]

Finally a day where my horrific internet connection has worked enough to download something!

Ok, I played this, and it was great. It felt a lot like Unreal, but different as well. I liked the puzzles, never too hard to work out, never pointlessly easy. The right level for fun. Clever secrets as well!
[spoiler]The Heart was very shiny! [/spoiler]

EDIT: I got 800 posts!

[Buff Skeleton]

Super late to the party again, but I finally got around to playing this! It was really fun and I had a blast on Unreal, though some parts were maybe a bit too unreasonable (the Warlord fight was ridiculous and the armor you were given was nowhere near enough if you made any mistakes during the fight and came in with low health from before). The repeated Skaarj attack in the second map was irritating as well, mostly because of that fucking insanely long earthquake which made it impossible to aim (while the Skaarj that dropped in was unaffected) and the damn arrow spawners made about 25% of the room unusable. Just a tip: bThrowPlayer earthquakes are ANNOYING! They should either be really short or set to bThrowPlayer=False and just use the shakeview effect.

And I say this having played both of these combat scenarios twice, actually, since I got to the fourth map and then got a corrupted save and had to restart. So the fact that I was playing on Unreal for my first time doesn't factor into my criticism of those combat arenas. Besides, Unreal difficulty isn't an excuse to make a fight unfair - you still have to balance a fight assuming the player came into it underequipped. Everything else was peachy, though. Challenging but not frustrating.

The architecture was also really good in the first couple of maps; it didn't start looking weak until the houses in the third map, and I liked the design of the inside of the huge church thing in the fourth even if it was visually the least impressive part of the pack (but not by a lot). I definitely got an Unreal 1 vibe from the whole thing, especially since I just finished another Unreal 1 playthrough last night. I think your ancient maps shined the best, because you are able to make a lot cooler stuff with very simple geometry using Ancient.utx than you are with NaliCast.utx; the latter set is harder to use, especially indoors. I thought the fourth map was going to have some more asymmetric, non-linear exploration going on when I started wandering around, but then I realized it was still just as linear as the other maps, which is another thing that bugged me a bit.

Ammo provisions were generally just fine, but health could have used a little extra, even on Unreal. Maybe have more extra (weak) monsters that drop bandages or health packs in the future. I liked all the detail strewn around, like plants and dislodged tiles and stuff (mostly in the ancient maps), and I thought it was an interesting choice to have the first map begin close to the exit, although that single bar was kinda goofy (in the real world, someone could just crawl under that shit - make your barred gates feel impassable for real, not just in game terms).

The story was weak and didn't make a whole lot of sense to me, especially because I don't imagine Chizra as being the kind of deity that would smugly reject some fancy offering or even WANT some kind of fancy offering, but it was enough to drive the maps and the puzzle elements.

So yeah, overall, good job! I'm looking forward to playing your next release, especially with some gameplay improvements, as you already have a lot of good scripted sequencing techniques down.

[salsaSkaarj]

OMG!, I downloaded this on July 13th and it's been hiding between all the other files I have ever since. Shame on me.
I hereby vow to play this sometime next week for sure.

[Doublez-Down]

Thanks Waff, totally agree with everything. I'd do some things a lot differently nowadays.

[salsaSkaarj]

I hereby vow to play this sometime next week for sure.

OK, so next week started about an hour after writing that post .
I only played the first map (no more time) and WOW this is true Unreal quality in regards to architecture (nice texturing also), and gameplay.

The shortage of health I can live with (I played on Hard) but if you don't get the Rocketlauncher (e.g. drop down and there's no way to get back up on that pedestal), then the rest of the map is very, very difficult. I couldn't get past the Warlord without that rocketlauncher so I had to restart (and that should be made clear with a hint, e.g. when you come out of the opening you see the RL and think: Aha, a RL, now how do I get it?.

[Doublez-Down]

You can still get the RL if you miss the drop. Just slide a barrel over to the pillar and use it. And I find the flak cannon a much more useful weapon against the Warlord.

Divine Annex was going to be its own standalone quick map, which is why it has such a strong end boss and doesn't really flow with the rest of the pack. Lazy mapper syndrome I guess. It's the result of just opening up the editor and building without really planning. Glad you liked it though.

[salsaSkaarj]

You can still get the RL if you miss the drop. Just slide a barrel over to the pillar and use it.

OK, why didn't I think about that? (probably because the barrels where already shot)