27/11/2017 - "Prisons Of The Unforchers" by Editor Dave

[Semfry]

Map Title: Prisons Of The Unforchers
Author: Editor Dave
From: UT99.org Community Map Pack 2
Filename: SP-01-UTR-Unforchers.unr
Music Files: OutsideSong.umx Shadowfight1.umx Shadowfight2.umx Shadowfight3.umx UnforchersPrisonTheme.umx




Synopsis: After prolonged imprisonment in an alien structure you finally get a chance to escape...

Discuss!

[Semfry]

I wrote a sort of review in a thread I made ages ago (I still need to revisit it though, and this is for both maps rather than just one), and I'll link the thread because it's somewhat related: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1592

"It's certainly got quite a few original ideas (like the start and the choice of routes and Redeemer stuff), and the style is really unique (and makes good use of Crypt). However its got some issues too. Firstly it doesn't really seem too balanced for Unreal difficulty; it's finishable just fine, but if you go the "combat" route there's so many snipers at a couple of points that even with their lowered health it becomes a case of reloading until you get lucky. There also seems to be too little health at points; you can be forced to do some parts at very low health if you mess up; the area with the cursed armour is one example I can think of. While it looks good there's some parts where the framerate seems to tank, like the large platforming area in the "puzzle" route when you look at the middle. Some parts also kill the framerate with too many enemies, like the final battle (it would probably work better with a smaller number of tougher skaarj) and the corridor full of Slith at the end of the puzzle route, although the latter only seems to get real bad when there's fog visible.

While the combat route was fine beyond the snipers the puzzle route has some issues. The first is that the ASMD area should be hinted as not being the way further in some way; I missed it the first time and there seems to be no way to backtrack after going down the pit with the Warlord (who seems to get stuck real easy), and after that you have to drop down to the lava area and take a bunch of forced damage (unless I missed something). The clues for the spike traps also didn't help at all; I don't see how the warning about red and white applies to the part they are in at all, and it took several attempts before I realised you just had to jump. As I said before the framerates got real bad at times in the big chamber, which made the platforming a pain at times, and there's also little bits of detail sticking out that make a couple of jumps much harder than they should be. Also the music is some sort of rock track which doesn't fit this slower-paced area at all, and got really annoying for me after a while. Overall that path got pretty frustrating at times.

Story wise, I thought the atmosphere seemed a bit muddled in terms of comedy messages vs serious ones, and it made the mood a little confused for me, and I wanted to find out a bit more about the whole backstory, but I guess that's for the final pack. The ending was also real anti-climatic, but again that's probably being worked on.

Beyond the issues though, as I said it's quite fresh and has a very original theme, so the final, full version has lots of potential."

[Xanious]

Oh, it was part of a map pack? That explains how it ended up in my install long ago. I had no idea where the mod came from. It was spook.


Admittedly I didn't play through the whole thing. I love Unreal's Crypt aesthetic though, so I'll probably give it another shot at some point.

[editor Dave]

Cool, I didn't see that coming!

For anyone interested in the map(s), please install the patch pack. The original version has at least one broken feature, which I couldn't solve in time, but did later, and it is more balanced: http://ut-files.com/index.php?dir=Maps/ ... _Patch.zip

However, this version is still nothing compared to what Episode 2 will be. Originally, I just wanted to add 2 more maps and be done with it. But during the course of the mapping, my style matured and I became dissatisfied with the original more and more. So I improved a lot of aspects in the first, and even more in the second map. The final iteration of Unforchers will contain heavily edited versions of what you know of. I just wished I could work faster. The original plan of adding 2 more maps had to be tossed away too since I wanted to expand more on the main characteristic of the project: Being able to choose where to go. I may have went overboard with, but well... you'll see... in X years?

There is only one area on the screenshots that has been changed visually so far, so here is an example of the changes in that regard (still WIP, the positioning of some assets isn't finished yet). Lighting and Creature Scripting will be more nuanced as well. Notice the water as example of a minor gameplay change...

[Nalisavior]

This map pack was enjoyable, the boss fight at the end is fun

[editor Dave]

I'm glad you liked it! Before this gets closed, I wanna guide you all to this thread where I posted more and more finished comparison screenshots of reworked rooms of the first map: https://ut99.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=12211&start=0

[Sat42]

Before this gets closed, I wanna guide you all to this thread where I posted more and more finished comparison screenshots of reworked rooms of the first map: https://ut99.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=12211&start=0

Awesome stuff! Very excited to see this MOTW - I missed the opportunity to play the original Unforchers before (I didn't even know it was accessible), something I will be correcting as soon as I can! (with the patch pack of course)

Cheers!

[UBerserker]

Nonlinearity was a huge deal of the map, last time I replayed it I did forget how the map went but took a really quick route to finish it without realizing, lol. It's a 100% "dungeon" dungeon, as in it's a dangerous place where you don't want to fuck up once; there are quite a lot of crazy situations, especially when it comes to the moving platforms area.
There are still things I never figured out about the level: it is incredibly overwhelming, it's very hard to master it unless you play it around 10 times in a row.


By the way, some transparency about how current MOTW works.
Randoming is gone and I personally choose the maps directly. The choices are generally random, though sometimes I do stick to a schedule (i.e. a map from a certain pack appears in the third week of a month twice in a row). Maps from unreviewed levels will also appear; RTNP is replaced with RTNP Ultimate Edition since it's a direct upgrade. The last weeks will always come with unexpected/surprising levels.

[salsaSkaarj]

I haven't played this yet, in fact I didn't even know this existed before this MOTW.
I've downloaded it now and will certainly start plating soon (in between some Interloper sessions). Screenshots certainly look interesting enough, with nice detail and from what I read it's no walkover.