Map commentary as required by the usp map contest


The initial inspiration for this map comes from an old videogame called the dig, it was about three astronauts stranded on an alien world after activating an artifact they found in an asteroid.
I don't need to go much into detail about it, but i was fascinated about the idea of an ancient alien civilization that dissapeared long ago and left their impressive technology behind, the people just playing around the place like rats in an experiment, with no comprehension of what the place is about.
Second thing that inspired me was the movie pitch black, about a bunch of travellers stranded on an alien world after their ship crashes, a completely desolate place, however with terrible dangers hidden, can't spoil too much :)


When i chose to do a map in this theme, i knew it was going to be a challenge, unreal is an old bsp based engine, and the dig or the alien world i had in mind was full of organic shapes where technology blends in with the natural surroundings, after many first attempts i couldn't reproduce this concept, the most difficult challenge was to do it with unreal's stock textures, which don't bear a resemblence to the picture i had in mind at all.


I planned the map by pretty much copying the main layout from the dig, you had several spires in a vast ocean, which appear unconnected, i wanted to use various means like underwater tunnels and energybridges to connect them.
The map consisted of three eroded pyramids, however in the middle was supposed to be a final hidden pyramid, which could only be accessed by activating a bridge towards it, after which it emerges out of the ocean, however i never got around implenting that idea.
The map would have been a no weapon's map, everything had to be solved alternatively, i had various ideas setup for that. For one i had the idea of a plant like parasite infesting the place and spreading, not only would it block your path, but it would release weak enemies like pupae or gasbags, the player had to find a weakness for this parasite, which was daylight. The player had to lure these enemies into daylight, or open lightshafts/reflect light onto parasite entities so they would wither. The player even could toy with a planetarium room where the suns could be aligned, opening new paths as sunlight burns through parasite. Unfortunately none of that made it into the map.
The parasite was vital to the story, which never even got implented, so i won't spoil too much about that :)


I coped with the deadline pretty well in the beginning, i knew the limitations of the game for most part and i thought six weeks was quite possible, i had to tone down my original idea a bit though as i started out with 5 pyramids, reducing it to three... and in the final there's only one, with a second one being quite pointless, the third one being completely inaccessible.
The worst part about development was that, i still had a difficulty coming up with executing most of the details, pretty much no game really attempted something like that, and i had a hard time coming up with ideas that fit in the limitations of the unreal engine as well, the problems got worse here as i got really demotivated, and after two weeks i put the project down, i pretty much decided not to participate on the contest anymore.
I tried to make up other concept maps for the contest, but with less then a week before the deadline, coming up with a new concept from scratch wasn't easy, so in the end i decided to simply revive the "completed" bits from the map and make a rushed job out of it, instead of the elaborate puzzles i had in mind, i put down some simple buttons, to give the player atleast some dumb button hunt quest. The result is the mess you'll see.


I am, short to say, very dissapointed with the outcome, but i really had two choices, either drop it and forget about it, because other projects already occupy my time. Or use my last free time to make something, i chose for the latter, and in the last day before the deadline i stitched together everything, the result was a fully completed first pyramid (although without gameplay), and only 1/3rd of the second pyramid (no gameplay), and none of the third pyramid. Alot of stuff didn't make it in, a planetarium room, a terrarium room, and the parasite infested wreck of the spaceship that dropped you off.
The worst thing though is that i didn't have the time to put in my draft story, i had ideas for story progression, hyroglyphs, strange messages, the player's thoughts, radio communication from the ship, none of it got in.
The end result is, an empty map that feels completely desolate, almost pointless to play.

Atleast it was a learning process for me, for one, i'm quite proud of some of the geometry i did, its unique and nothing like i ever did before in unreal, it does has that organic feel that isn't commonly seen in unreal (maybe zoras or tarmation, thats about it). I think the end result, if i didn't rush it out as it is, could have been beautiful and fun to experience.

