Back in April of '06, I was still clinging tenuously to mapping. I think 5th Station was still fresh out of the oven, and I was thinking of ways to carry that adventure style mapping to the next level. For that purpose, the central concept of this map was conceived.
After I finished building the engine, the next step of the process was to come up with a story, and I came up with a darkly epic tale about a bunch of mysterious characters exploring a ruined space-hulk of a ship. But then I shelved the map for a while to play another game, and when I walked away from that tryst, I got to thinking that the idea was not my style.
The next idea was to make it a joke/horror map, with silly ghosts and odd ball villains. But before I knew it, Halloween has passed and I changed the idea yet again. In the end, as I started to sense that this map really would be my last, I decided to make it a story about tying up loose ends -- a metaphor for what the map was supposed to be: a farewell for an old friend.
It's a little disappointing that I couldn't finish it. It looks like I am going to be leaving the game that took me through all of middle school and most of high school without living up to my potential. I feel like I had ideas that were right up there with the best of them, some of them I won't be able to show you anymore, and some of them you've already seen. Haha, I admit that I was never as good of a writer, terrainer, triggerer, game designer, or game breaker that some of you guys were. You all have my most tremendous respect. All I ever did was pay inordinate attention to detail and presentation while trying out ideas.
Anywho, I wonder how many of you guys are left from the days when I released the Legacy of Haean. This was back when staredit.net was still rather shoddy and when Yoshi was working on a Matrix map that really pushed me to try new things. At the time, I thought the blizzforums mapping board was the major leagues, so I posted my map here hoping to gauge the response before taking on the big boys. I never imagined that SEN would get so big, but I'm happy that it did. I never participated much, but you guys have been great to me and just fine without me. Oh, and I never did post my map on blizzforums. This place was simply too good to leave. (Although I did make a brief stop at warboards)
So that's that, I suppose. If you've read all of that, you have my thanks. Now, on to the map.
In the old days, I would have knocked out a fancy template, but I'm here to keep it simple.
This map is a single-player, adventure style game with small screen-sized rooms. You explore them. As with many of your classic adventure games, there is a console/menu screen. There are also actions that you can perform by stepping on something and pressing a button. For example, if you step up to a door, you can press a button to inspect it, press a button to use it, or open your inventory screen and try to use an item on it. It sounds dull, but I think that it is executed in a way that perhaps you have never seen before. I did show some people this map along the way, so I suppose it might have been shown around already.
That's really all there is to this map. I don't know what other features I could list to entice you. It's new! It's interesting! It's the last hurrah for a guy who was once a well-regarded mapper!
Obligatory screenshots to follow.
When you walk up to something of interest, the text in the upper left corner will change to indicate actions you can take. You can also tell by looking at your resources.
http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/2684/buildzw7.jpg
The next step is to build a unit using the hotkeyed stargate to perform an action. This is explained in game.
In this case, a caption appears when you inspect the item of interest. Foreboding, no?
And... some notes about the map to keep in mind while playing through it:
In the cargo bay, you can blow up barrels to reveal a secret compartment in the wall. Using a plastic explosive by the healing capsule also reveals a secret, but doing so will also destroy the healing point. I never got far enough to fully develop all the maps secrets, but here are two of them (that aren't finished either)
The plot synopsis is that you are an old assassin who killed the former pirate king to put an end to the pirate era. His dying wish was that there never be another pirate king. The boss of this map was a guy who stole the former king's ship and wants to revive the pirate era, and you have to stop him.
Progress on this map ended just before I was able to create the last 4 battle missions. They were basically boss battles with a ghost (in the lab), infested kerrigan (ducts), and a goliath (engineering bay). The last boss fight was to take place in an empty room that was contained by walls made of dark templars. Had no real idea what the last fight was going to be like.
There was going to be an enemy AI that was based on line of sight. Didn't get to implement it, so the enemies are mostly there for show. Boring, I know.
Finally, this thread is mostly just for me to get the last bit of Starcraft out of my system forever. I'll be here for the rest of the week to respond to posts, but, after that, this thread will be an orphan. Any questions and comments are welcome.
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. You are one of my favorite Mapmakers.
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