Scrapper - More Than Just Tyson Maps Now!!

Hey folks, I bring you a few maps.

Download Scrapper Beta 3! Now at 5 maps!

(Please note: this beta contains the introductory map of all three episodes, and pistol starts are strongly recommended for them. They occupy the maps 01, 03, and 05 slots respectively. Maps 02 and 04 are beatable from pistol start, but they are balanced more for continuous play.)

I've had a bunch of maps sitting in a state of near completion for some time now, and the projects they were made for are either dead, or no longer what I'm contributing to, or whatever. Anyway, I've decided to add a bit of polish to them and release them standalone! I have a few more random maps in the quasi-hell of project purgatory, so I'll most certainly be giving those maps the same treatment over the next few *mumbles* and include them in this thread as a full release at some point at the end of summer.

At the moment, I have three short episode themes planned: Gothic TX, Thy Flesh Consumed, and Aquatex. The current beta has the opening map of each episode present, so those maps should hopefully give a good thematic idea of what to expect from the full project. If I complete all the half-finished maps sooner rather than later, then I'll flesh things out with some new speedmaps on top of everything else. I don't know exactly how many maps this will end up as - possibly six, possibly fifteen, who knows!

Pistol starts are strongly recommended for each map. Happy playing!

screenshots

Screenies look quite nice; I'll add this to my play list.

I quite enjoyed playing these maps. Very nice layout and visual design. I felt like they were meant to be played aggressively which is fitting for my playstyle. But due to my lack of knowledge of the maps, that didn't work out that well since I got stuck at one point on both maps and then had to kill most of the monsters to progress further.
I also liked the choice of weapons, something different than the usual SSG combat vs mid-tier monsters.

Yeah it turns out I was just being dumb not noticing the way to the exit in Map02 and wasting all my ammo.
But I was right that the map is fun to play through fast so I tried some UV-Speed attempts to just get a faster exit. Really fun map! :D

Map 02 UV-Speed in 1:15

FDA's for 1 & 2, interesting maps with semi tyson emphasis.

M1: BK fight was fun. The vile near the crushers is pretty devious considering the chance of ghosts. Spotted a missing sky transfer

M2: Not that good at Tyson so i gave up after a cautious and a more reckless attempt but i don't think i've missed that much. Glad i tried saving as much cells as possible, the pinkie fight might be tricky without enough. In software mode you're able to see the heads of the imps that'll pop out of the blood. Generally i'd recommend to be a tad more generous with cell ammo.

Thanks for the kind words and playthroughs, fellas. I've went ahead and added a third map to the wad, and I have a better idea of where I want to take this project going forward. I realised that I had a bunch of half-completed maps across three different projects, so I'm aiming to have the project consist of three short-ish episodes (3-5 maps per episode, maybe?). I found out recently that I'm heading to Germany for a year in September, meaning I most likely won't have as much access to designing stuff for the community during that period, so I'm basically gonna cram as much of what I can possibly finish into this wad and release everything at the end of August. Anyway, you can download what's currently finished here!

Another very good opening map. Got to the exit first try in around 4 minutes.
I didn't find the secrets without actively looking for them after getting to the exit but I think I actually prefer the pure tyson gameplay for this map and I found the resources were balanced well to not need any extras like the green armor and also not needing to play carefully with the pistol instead of aggressive chainsaw / berserk. It was nice that you used a lot of the 1% bonuses for it that actually mattered and were worth picking up then.

Also very nice visual style. I assume it is the map for the "Aquatex" theme and I think I like it the most out of the 3 judging by the opening map. Also that looked like a lot of work for the outside area. ;D

I played all three on UV (I think). I'm not very good at tyson, so the sort of mixed-tyson approach worked well. Good fun. Visually, these are pretty different maps, but the gameplay ties them together. It was clever in MAP02 how if you didn't deal with the yellow key area's pinkie horde at first, you re-encountered it prior to the exit.

I by far had the hardest time with MAP01 and the easiest with MAP03.

The rooms/areas with ribs/spines in MAP02 are really cool.

FDA for M3, so far the easiest of all 3 hence it should definitely be placed earlier. Visually i liked this one the most and the midi was funky too.

Hi chappers, thanks for the feedback. I come bearing maps that are not just tyson-centric!

Scrapper v0.3 - now at 5 maps

First off: I've swapped around episodes 1 and 2 so now the Gothic maps come first. Its maps are most likely gonna be much tamer than those of the Thy Flesh Consumed episode, so I decided to get that sorted out now.

Secondly, episodes 1 and 2 now contain a second map - they're more balanced for continuous, although I've made sure they're beatable from pistol start if that's more to your liking. The first map of the Aquatex episode continues to be the final map of the beta, and I was hoping to include map 02 of the Aquatex episode but I haven't found much time in which to work on it, so I'm gonna return to it in a couple weeks and hopefully post it then. I bring this up because map 05 is currently the easiest of the bunch, which is weird in terms of difficulty progression, and I won't have much access to a computer over the next couple weeks as I'm heading home for Easter break. Aquatex Map 02 would do what I hope is a good job in introducing the expected difficulty of the final episode, but for now that will have to wait for the next update. :<

Anyway, happy playing!

(EDIT: I should also note that Map 04 is a collab between myself and AD_79, who will be more appropriately credited when I stop being lazy enough to figure out mapnames for this thing and make CVILVs and such)

I already said that I liked the themes and visual design of your maps and since these are now a bit more complex, I will say some points about the gameplay that I noticed from my playthrough. I played UV from pistol start.

Map02

A good short and fast-paced map from the start on especially with pistol start, since you need to run past enemies to even get some weapons and ammo scattered around the area. Ammo was maybe a bit tight under these circumstances with all the monsters around even if you make use of some infighting in close quarters.

The hitscanners were the only really problematic part for my health. Eventually the Revs won the infights and with the monsters teleporting in before the ending section, I felt like I needed to kill them. With just the basic shotgun and little ammo against them I funnily found the Berserk to be the best option against them so this one became half a Tyson map as well for me.

The exit was kinda unexpected after just getting the PR and with how easy it is to skip fighting the AV by just leaving.

Since I was constantly moving and avoiding enemies, I didn't have time to look for any secrets but that megasphere I saw would have probably made things easier though it wasn't that challenging anyway.

Map04

This map was quite a bit bigger so I'll just point out some things that I liked/disliked.

The start was really cool doing it Pacifist and then coming back with weapons and killing the enemies to claim all the resources there. Health was no problem but ammo again a bit tight early with the shotgun not being available right away and rockets you really have to use wisely.

The encounter after the yellow switch was really cool and also the area after that when you rush in from the bridge.

The lava area after the blue doors was nice as well but I found it way too easy to escape right away with the teleporter that is just on your right after the floor has lowered.

The ambush after pressing the switch in that area was cool but with the AV in front of all other monsters, it was easy to just blast him with rockets before he could do anything. I also found the secret on the other side of that switch with the PR. The opposition there is maybe a bit too weak for that weapon.

The ending parts of the map in the rock arena were really awesome but I accidentally found one thing that you can easily cheese the Cyber by going up to the platform in the lava cave area. The Cyber will just be stuck in front of the lift and you can find a safe spot up there without lava (sector 635) and kill him or even easier just wait and let the AVs destroy him that are most likely aggro'd on to him. I went down again anyway, because I thought the Cyber would probably be more useful alive for infighting.

I got 97% kill and 5 secrets including the BFG but I got that one when I was basically done with the map so idk how impactful it would have been when you got it as soon as it becomes accessible. The encounter at that secret was good as well though it's basically over once you get it even with the AVs teleporting in.

Health/Armor resources were more than enough here as well though with all the damaging floor you like to use, it really makes a difference how fast you're able to find the right way to progress without running across it too often.

So overall really cool maps so far, thanks for making them! :D

The feedback is much appreciated Nate, thanks! On the topic of the limited ammo in both maps, that is definitely a deliberate thing which is designed to make pistol starts a difficult thing even if the player knows where everything is. I want to try and create maps where players have to scramble about to find purchase at various points in the map, although they're definitely gonna go through some tweaking prior to any full release that will happen. Balancing for continuous is a tricky task when you don't have every map already finished, so as to best figure out how things will play out concurrently.

As for the ending of Map 02, I can definitely see where you're coming from. I'm gonna wait to see how other people receive it before I go about making any changes, because I want to present players with the option of simply rushing for the exit should they wish to do so. If it's the easiest way to deal with that area though, then I'll see what I can do about it.

With the lava area after the blue door, I didn't even consider that the player can simply run for the teleporter and camp the encounter, especially when it seems so obvious in hindsight. Luckily I can just have the teleport raise during that part of the fight, and then lower it back once they've finished off the room.

FDA for the new Map02, a really nice map. Ammo was certainly a bit too tight in places even though i tried to play as conservative as possible. I guess the berserk literally saved my ass. I initially wanted to complain about the 2 rev snipers in the RSK fight cause you've barely enough ammo to deal with the enemies on the ground but since those also have another chance to snipe you near the exit i prefer to keep them where they are. 

The purpose of the switch that reveals the RL secret is a bit obsucre if you haven't discovered the corresponding PG secret.

I wanted to revisit the  RSK towards the end but found no way.

Only found the megasphere by myself and used IDDT to figure out the remaining 2 secrets but the map was basicly beaten at that point, wish i'd found them earlier.

Oh yeah and i agree with Nate, the ambush at the exit could maybe use a bit more spice.

2 hours ago, an_mutt said:

On the topic of the limited ammo in both maps, that is definitely a deliberate thing which is designed to make pistol starts a difficult thing even if the player knows where everything is. I want to try and create maps where players have to scramble about to find purchase at various points in the map, although they're definitely gonna go through some tweaking prior to any full release that will happen.

That is a nice idea and like I mentioned, you definitely succeeded there to get me moving around the map looking for every bit of ammo right from the start instead of just staying there and shooting every enemy on sight one by one. And for me it was only really tight at the start of the maps and without playing too conservatively, but I can see how it might be a problem in some encounters like the yellow switch area in Map04, if someone wastes all their rockets before it. But it is definitely manageable especially with knowledge about the maps (like an upcoming encounter that requires some rockets to beat it effectively) so you'll just have to decide how hard you want to make it for the pistol start players with your tweaking.

2 hours ago, an_mutt said:

 Luckily I can just have the teleport raise during that part of the fight, and then lower it back once they've finished off the room.

That is probably the easiest and best solution for it. With the rad suits and health down there it shouldn't be a problem to lock the player in for a while.