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I really like that YA shortcut lift. You see it first inaccessibly from below, so that when you come back to it from above, it's an obvious landmark. Then it drops as you go for it, making the plat sound, so you know it's now a shortcut lift. No special buttons or "Shortcut unlocked" prints necessary, because the item does the job of luring you into learning. A perfect little design case.
But watching the video again I realise the same mechanic was being experimented with throughout.
It's just that YA is the clearest (best?) example. Very cool stuff. Daz, why not just do videos of CZGs maps from now on?
CZG - you'll need to step up production! ijed, I noticed it on another run-through in a few other places, too, you're right.
There's also a clear moment in czg03 when you feel yourself graduate from living mainly on the lower level to living mainly on the upper level, and that moment is grabbing the gold key. You've been up some stairs briefly before, but never stayed up there long before the layout demoted you again. After the gold key door, you pass through every major atrium you've already been to, exclusively via the upper decks you've seen but never visited, all the way around to the silver key and the first fight atop the bloody crown. Returning to the first halls leading up to the silver door feels a bit like returning as a conquering hero, because you've since been elevated to mastery of the space Every time you retrace your steps a second time, you do it in the same direction you did the first time. Your forward movement is never arrested, and you never turn around.
- From the opening area beneath the combat crown, up the embankment and down the hall to the main room: first time at the start of the map, second time traveling from the silver key crown ambush to the silver door. - Along the rocky shore to the bloody pentagram door (or the 'not quite gold key door'): the closed door diverts you up the stairs behind you, which meanders through the mid-height reaches of that side of the map, leading to a button. That button opens the pentagram door, and if you run right over it and off the ledge, you land back on the rocky shore headed straight for the door again. - From inside the gold key tower toward the gold key door: first time, you pass the gold key cage in the tower, then the gold key door after it diverts you onto a lower path. Second time, you've come around to grab the gold key from within the bars, which rise, and the gold door is literally in sight right down the same corridor. These moments feel like you're returning to a shorter "main" path from a brief diversion, but because your movement is always forward into new areas it never feels like a diversion at the time. That's a consequence, of course, of giving the player precisely zero choices, but if you want a map to be linear and not feel that way, czg03 is an object lesson in how to do that. fuuuck this map is so good Now I can't wait to see your reaction when you realise that Honey was named after CZG's memories of a bear ceremonially circling his depths in a sleepless night until he was numb.
That the circles referred to the bloody crown, but realized that made no sense when first playing. Then I came to the same conclusion, that the name refers to the loops made by the critical path.
This got me looking at czg07 more and drawing out the loops involved in those maps. It's all circles! This got me mapping by drawing blobby sketches at the start. Ok, so I want to start a new video series called "Developer Commentary" where I play through a level with the mapper present on skype and we talk about the design of the map (and laugh at my Quake skills).
If you are interested in doing this with me then please get in contact with me either here, or email, or anywhere really :) Can be a Quake map, Half-life/2 map or any game really. I just need to own the game so I can actually play the level! If anyone would be willing to go through a "beta" phase where I test all the recording setups and skype config etc that would be awesome. I'd happily point out everything I now hate about LunSP1 while you fall off ledges.
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