what is the plutonia theme?

I like Plutonia a lot and recently I was replaying Plutonia 2. I was surprised after playing through most of it how many techbase themed levels there are. There's also a lot of overgrowth vine textures and popular Plutonia bricks everywhere.

It doesn't seem to have many qualities that resemble a techbase in its maps, though the tech qualities in its maps are not entirely absent. There's a good bit of Victorian inmost dens style urban areas in many of the maps. The amount of vines used in Plutonia themed maps is also pretty seriously exaggerated most of the time.

So how would you identify the plutonia theme?

It's like Doom 2, a lot of shit mixed together

Generic brick-stone-wood-vine-slime.

Plutonia's theme is Plutonia. Seriously, it's such a well-established and unique style that you can't define it without recursion.

Most people would argue that Plutonia is the better looking IWAD. To put it another way, let's say that plutonia was being reiterated through a different medium, such as a movie set or a stand alone game. What would you expect to see?

40oz said:

To put it another way, let's say that plutonia was being reiterated through a different medium, such as a movie set or a stand alone game. What would you expect to see?

I'd expect to see (to put it another way) generic architecture out of brick, stone or wood materials, largely covered by vines, and many floors being filled with slime. (uh)

Doom with new textures and a new theme alongside.

I think it's an abstract Doomy take on the jungle.

Wow you guys are boring. All right-brain today, huh?

This isn't a trivia question, think about it. Would it be Egyptian, Arabian, Roman, Greek palaces? Jungle ferns and palm trees with military bunkers and dugout trenches? Alpine mountainsides with redwood and pine trees? Deserted decrepit cities? Really? Nothing?

Tombs, temples, ruins, mountains, that sort of thing.

And don't forget green.

Edit: Although if you require a more in-depth response, i'd say that one of the Casali brothers motives was to avoid the generic techbase/urban locations that we're already accustomed to and venture more into unexplored land. I guess more earthy environments were something new since before Plutonia this particular theme wasn't widely introduced. I can't say what specifics they had in mind because there's nothing distinct in the designs. I don't believe they're meant to represent anything other than generic tombs, temples etc.

Skeletons

Jungle ruins with makeshift tech bases.

Its brown themed mostly, with a bit of jungle and hidden ruin feel along the way. It's also bullshit "NES hard" themed, as in you have to go in and get your ass kicked a few times before you know how to get through. I don't necessarily mean that in a bad way, but it can be pretty grindy at times.

The animated textures with many frames were a nice touch, made the place feel a little more alive. I definitely do not think its the best looking iwad, though.

40oz said:

This isn't a trivia question, think about it. Would it be Egyptian, Arabian, Roman, Greek palaces? Jungle ferns and palm trees with military bunkers and dugout trenches? Alpine mountainsides with redwood and pine trees? Deserted decrepit cities? Really? Nothing?

Nothing? Actually yes, Plutonia is "not themed". What marks Plutonia is its texture set that gives to it its particular look, and for the most Plutonia describes really abstract places (the most glaring exceptions are MAP26 and MAP29). Plutonia is about the exploration of the gampeplay. On the other side there's TNT with its emphasis on the setting and with the first good attempts at more realistic places.
And imo you can't really compare Plutonia with Plutonia 2.

gaspe said:

Plutonia describes really abstract places

:( but

We went to great lengths to ensure the player could really believe the location he was fighting for his life in was a real place somewhere. Each one was designed with a particular theme in mind, and none looks similar to another.

kuchitsu said:

:( but

They did a really good on the architecture, but at least to me the places don't convey so much that they are actually something and the sense of place is lacking.

I always imagined Plutonia(1. I've only played the first) to be run down tech bases within jungle and canyon locations. I could never really tell what the Casili's were going for, but this is what I always thought they were.

I always got a strong jungle theme from Plutonia earlier on, the first level being called Congo in the IWAD furthers this.

Yeah Plutonia is pretty explicitly a sprawling techbase complex occupying old ruins in a jungle/canyon environment. There seems to be a small village nearby that serves as MAP29.

It never seemed to have a specific theme to me. Most of the maps are strikingly different from one to the next. The only real theme is elevated difficulty (for its time).

The new theme that plutonia introduces along with doom tech bases are indian themed jungles and temples.

What I don't get is why The Temple of Darkness (Map 25) is abruptly hell themed all the way through and then the Bunker (Map 26) is suddenly jungle, again. It's like that map was just randomly slapped there with no actual thought. Then again, many of the levels don't really make sense going from one to the other.

I dunno, I think that more plays with the way Hell seems to consume parts of reality, which is why we still see bits of the city and its infrastructure towards the end of Doom 2 (The Chasm comes to mind -- it's pretty obviously an industrial installation of some sort.)

I see it as a bunch of abandoned tech areas that have fallen victim to nature.

TraceOfSpades said:

I see it as a bunch of abandoned tech areas that have fallen victim to nature.

Which we need a lot more of, in my opinion. Instead of just hellish influence, there needs to be a lot more maps in where nature starts to take over. Sadly, there aren't very many textures like this. A mouldy, mossy techbase-turned-nature preserve isn't a thing we see often. I think lack of slopes and good midtextures might be a factor?

Csonicgo said:

I think lack of slopes and good midtextures might be a factor?

If only there was a source port which supported slopes...

So basically you want to see more Chernobyl-like areas where a lack of human activity (In Chernobyl's case, radiation obviously) allowing nature to sort of take over and you can see plants and other vegetation ripping through buildings because that's what happens. You probably wouldn't need that much slopes, to be honest, you could just use sprites to represent vines and grass poking through or even just textures that already have them.

MetroidJunkie said:

So basically you want to see more Chernobyl-like areas where a lack of human activity (In Chernobyl's case, radiation obviously) allowing nature to sort of take over and you can see plants and other vegetation ripping through buildings because that's what happens. You probably wouldn't need that much slopes, to be honest, you could just use sprites to represent vines and grass poking through or even just textures that already have them.


http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/11/28/article-2239505-163D5CAD000005DC-703_964x640.jpg

YES!

There's a map in cchest2 (I think) that hits that theme perfectly, I was really impressed with it my first time around.

@MetroidJunkie, yes but not as creepy.