11/01/2025 - "Right 2 Live + Rise of USP + Untitled" by sana, T. J. Adams & TIK

[Sat42]

Map Titles and respective Authors:

• Right 2 Live, sana
  Rise of USP, Toby J. "Legendslayer222" Adams
  Untitled, TheIronKnuckle (TIK)

From:

• UnrealSP.Org 8th Anniversary Speedmapping Contest - Eighth Place
  UnrealSP.Org 8th Anniversary Speedmapping Contest - Seventh Place
  UnrealSP.Org 10th Anniversary Speedmapping Contest - Third Place

Filenames:

• Right2Live.unr
  RiseOfUSP.unr
  speedmap2fix.unr

Right 2 Live:


Rise of USP:


Untitled:


Video Playthrough:

Right 2 Live:


Rise of USP:


Untitled:


Synopsis:

• Right 2 Live:
  You are an ordinary human, earning your daily bread with what may be the most tedious job on Earth. With the dawn of the Liandri Tournaments you have begun training to apply as a combatant to escape your boring life, but a horrible catastrophe breaks out when you least expect it... will you ever make it to the Tournament?
  
  Rise of USP:
  One time, UnrealSP.Org was just a small fan site. Eventually, one of its members, waiting in the shadows, rose up. He was called Legendslayer222, and using UnrealSP, he took control of the Earth!
  You play as a disgruntled citizen who is getting themselves armed, preparing to strike at the heart of the oppressive UnrealSP: the USP-HQ...
  
  Untitled:
  [Data unavailable]

Discuss!

[Semfry]

Note that the Untitled download on the review is currently the incorrect version, so to get the correct version you need to download the compilation from the start of the 10th anniversary article. Hopefully that will be fixed soon (edit: fixed now!). Also not sure if the Right 2 Live Zombies turning into Legless Krall was always there?

Right 2 Live: Does a decent job building it's atmosphere and the city environment, but the lack of any progression (whether in combat or level design), or even any ammo restock makes it quite limited. Though this was a "ultra-speedmap" made in six hours so the lack of extras makes sense.

Rise of USP: The most "traditional" of these three maps, while simple there's a general sense of place here and some progression as you go further up the structure, as well as some alternative routes. The city skybox also looks decent and helps the visuals (although seeing over the start area later with nothing around looks a bit odd). The main issue is it being somewhat overscaled (at least for it's current design) so there are parts where you just walk down long corridors with nothing in them. The "UnrealSP HQ" joke is decently supported though, and builds well towards the joke final boss. Also the "28 year project" joke seems like it will inevitably become true at this point...

Untitled: The most non-standard of the three, as a purely narrative "walking simulator" style map that gives what you put into it. Despite the simple visuals, your character's living space is convincing enough though, and the walk into the void does a lot to build up tension towards the (presumably intentionally) anti-climatic conclusion, as you just get dumped back at the start and are seemingly still stuck forever. While I'm not sure it's intentional, and if the details just weren't filled in, "Untitled" somehow feels like a fitting name.

[Sat42]

Note that the Untitled download on the review is currently the incorrect version, so to get the correct version you need to download the compilation from the start of the 10th anniversary article. Hopefully that will be fixed soon (edit: fixed now!). Also not sure if the Right 2 Live Zombies turning into Legless Krall was always there?

(awesome, thanks for fixing the download!) I can confirm that the zombies in Right 2 Live always did have the ability to randomly turn into zombified legless Krall when incurring enough damage (and always had that added custom leaping ability in that crippled state!)

I think Right 2 Live (good play on Left 4 Dead btw ) has a vibe that mainly reminded me of Quake actually, with the sky especially being reminiscent of the latter (or some of its mods with source ports for fog), and even the use of text messages broadcasted on screen (no universal translator here) reminded me of that one... if there's anything that is too "modern" here for the original Quake, it's all the non-hostile NPCs roaming just outside of the playable area: bunch of mofos could that have been a metaphor, or satire on the extraordinary capacity for human beings to ignore problems so long as it doesn't affect them in any immediately appreciable way? maybe sana (or rather their next digital incarnation!) will drop by to comment on this one it is the best of the 6-hour "ultra-speedmaps" IMO. I also remember UB's comment that since it's never ending, when you get bored just use the "suicide" command I would never be able to survive the horde for more than a few minutes...

Rise of USP is, indeed, a more traditional adventure (not being an ultra-speedmap helps), and I think it's quite good: the visuals are still below Unreal standards but the semi-linear design with alternative routes along the way does a lot to elevate the experience (and yeah, the UT-style city skybox generally provides decent support for the visuals). It's also actually challenging on a first playthrough, which is a good way to retain our attention throughout - alongside the comedic story

Also the "28 year project" joke seems like it will inevitably become true at this point...

And more than one project might fit the bill! **shudders** was this joke specifically about Battle for Na Pali? Or Firestorm? Residual Decay?

I wonder if Legendslayer222 has been in touch at all in the last few years?

As for Untitled: I basically agree with what Semfry said (including on the appropriateness of the title), I really liked the experience the first time round (it really is a mostly one-shot experience - or make that two shots to really ensure you read everything properly), and as one wordsmith said (i.e., Mister_Prophet, for those who haven't checked out the map's review) this makes for ideal water cooler discussion material! Really good writing in this one and good use of sounds too: I hope TheIronKnuckle can comment on it, perhaps clarifying some aspects of the narrative or the inspiration for it (aside from the David Lynch reference) That a good narrative experience can come out of such a short level speaks volumes about the author's creativity and the power that comes from harnessing the player's imagination. And as pointed out by Proph, this is the sort of thing that can be further developed with the help of ebd's firetrucks

[TheIronKnuckle]

I hope TheIronKnuckle can comment on it, perhaps clarifying some aspects of the narrative or the inspiration for it

The main poem that runs as you walk down the corridor is actually an obscure description of some things that really happened in my life superpositioned together.

It was the hottest day of the year on record in Sydney 2009 (some time in November or December, and also the tail end of my penultimate year in highschool). It was so hot that no one was playing handball in the quadrangle. That never happens. Kids be playing handball in the quadrangle even if it's a cyclone at this school. But this day was so hot that it was a freaking cauldron and everyone was just seeking shelter in the shade around the edges. The air was so damn heavy and dry.

So me and my best mate at the time decided to try be macho and play a 1on1 game anyway right in the middle of the arena with everyone else watching. It was pretty epic and we gave it a good shot and played a good game. However afterwards we utterly collapsed from exhaustion, dehydration, and heatstroke. We dragged ourselves to the library at the north end of the quad and basically passed out under some external stairs.

When I came to, school was over and goodmate was nowhere to be seen, and the midday heat had turned into the beginnings of a classic Sydney summer storm with lots of lighting and thunder but not necessarily that much rain. Somehow none of the teachers or kids had noticed me passed out the whole time that I was passed out.

Even though I had woken up, I was still heat stroked and dehydrated as anything, and had been for quite some hours now. As a result, the journey home was almost like a psychedelic trip. "A tunnel lies to my left and a bridge ends at my right, Before me are a million windows, behind me is a great sea of stairs" is a description of Hornsby station if you stand at the right spot and face the right direction while tripping on heatstroke haha.

The rest of the the poem refers to personal stuff which is only of public interest so long as it remains vague and obscure, however the context is that I had a case of decision paralysis along the lines of "it's almost time: do I catch this train or not?" once and it honestly felt that cosmic and that intense in terms of the anxiety and emotions and "apocalyptic" analogies.

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The unreal map tunnel, I actually initially wanted this to be the intro to a more traditional romp, and have it such that when you teleport back, an appropriate music track starts playing and the alternative end of the tunnel has a portal appear to take you to the rest of the level, or in a MC Escher/stanley Kubrick kinda way it would just be opened up to the rest of the map as if it had always been like that (via a movable wall or duplicated BSP with teleport or something). The two things that stopped me were 1. time constraints of the contest and 2. I didn't have any experience making traditional SP levels and lacked a firm concept for what kind of adventure I wanted to produce.

The prompt for the dark tunnel idea came from a description in lord of the rings where the fellowship are resting in pitchblackness in the mines of Moria. I haven't read those books since 2004 but the image always stuck with me, and unfolded like you see in the map.

Also the juggling balls are real, they're still on my IRL bookshelf lmao.

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Apologies for talking so much about myself and my own map, I resolved not to do so unless asked, and I hope what I've said is edifying! For the other speedmaps this week, I love Sana's Right2Live. The pun is a killer and I love those sorts of "endless till you die invasion" scenarios. It's a moody map in the best way. For Rise of USP, the screenshots and what everyone's saying have interested me in a replay!

[Sat42]

[...] Apologies for talking so much about myself and my own map, I resolved not to do so unless asked, and I hope what I've said is edifying! [...]

Awesome post, TIK, thanks for sharing all of that! Taking inspiration from your various personal experiences to build this kind of "fever dream" narrative does, I think, help convey a sense of authenticity about it and even reminds me of myself as I followed a similar process for a short story I wrote in my early twenties it's also very interesting to learn that you had initially wanted this to be an intro to a level with otherwise traditional FPS action: while I'm sure that has the potential to be very enjoyable, the fact that Untitled turned out to be only this mysterious, peaceful yet suffocating, seemingly never-ending existential loop probably helped cement its unique status among all the works produced in the Unreal/UT scene. And a lot of creativity and singular stuff arises from working within constraints as we know, and sometimes the end result can end up being more intriguing than the original plan!

[Mister_Prophet]

I for one appreciate Iron's explanation and insight to how he put his level together. Using this old game as a means to get out some stresses creatively is something to treasure. I even hesitated to review it for him at the time because I did not think it was appropriate to use the review scores to saddle the map with a number. But then again, all three of these are different forms of expression through limitation. If we ever organized one of these again I'd be happy to participate in a minimalist thing of this nature (I'm finding it hard to commit to the current USP compilation, even though I absolutely love the Pirates of Na Pali idea). I similarly enjoyed working on the Telephone project from a number of years back for similar reasons.

[ividyon]

I remember finding the corridor thoughts map interesting and unique, an "avant-garde art" way of employing the modding tools. And for Rise of USP, the premise was certainly interesting! Unfortunately time has eroded any other thoughts I had on those maps.

As for Right2Live, yeah well, I sure liked L4D at the time. The map was wholly carried by pre-existing zombie assets made by Marco for his zombie-themed maps. I always loved urban environments, and always wanted to recreate one in Unreal, and I guess with that I did. Other than that, yeah, there's not much of a game plan for this entry, and that's what I managed to slap together in a few hours.

While I've nothing much to say on it, it's kind of funny how it ended up being one of my few actual releases...

[Sat42]

Nice to read your thoughts, ivi the modern urban environment is indeed a rare theme in our scene, so it's always refreshing to see a map's take on it (and even with how short it is, yours has that memorable gloominess as pointed out by others).

[...] I similarly enjoyed working on the Telephone project from a number of years back for similar reasons.

I promise this one's not forgotten!

[ebd]

Only replayed 2 out of 3, will edit this post with comments on the third map if I'm not too late.

Re: Right2Live
The message near the start of the map is just too real
Other than that pretty short. We never saw that many urban environment maps that I can recall, even with UT99's assets, just richrig/industrial.

Re: Untitled
Experimental for sure. I remember having some bad takes on it at the time that I'd rather not dig up again. The gimmick doesn't work as well when you know what it is though.

Edit:

Re: RiseOfUSP
Shorter than I expected. I didn't play this one back in the day somehow. It's a nice community homage and kind of a fun map. The included quadshot doesn't work very well with 227 however because the models are different/missing.

I recorded all the gameplay footage but have no real time to edit, and these maps are pretty short so I am not too sure what the value in watching my playthroughs would be, so I think I will skip the video this week.