Jayextee

Taking a cue from @Doomkid, my WADography. Some of the early ones are shit, mind.

Murderous Intent (2001) - seven techbases. Too cramped, shitty implementation of difficulty.

No Hope For Life E1 (2001) - E1M3 is mine. Again, too cramped (I had a poor perception of space, I think). Way too homagey.

Doomworld Speedmapping Compilation #2 (2001) - MAP10 and WTF, this is poor. Looks okay for a speedmap of the time, plays like ass.

Doomworld Speedmapping Compilation #3 (2001) - MAP05, better than the above (kinda) and I like the traps. But why did I forget ANY health?

Sinister Intention (2012) - seven techbases (familiar? :P) in which I effectively forced pistol use against all low-tier enemies. Ugh, WHY?

100 Lines (2013) - several maps are mine, check the readme. I enjoyed this project enough to crib together my own episode.

900 Deep in the Dead (2013) - one map cribbed from the above, full E1 replacement. Am still proud of this, actually.

Switcheroom 2 (2015?) - MAP01, a mashup of sorts between the first and last maps of DOOM 2. Eh, not bad.

Nex Credo (2016) - 11 DOOM 2-styled maps, a mixed bag. Some of the better maps being used (with permission) for FreeDoom currently.

The Becoming (2017) - still BETA, still working on E2M9, but some maps here I really like.

FreeDoom (?) - On top of the above supplying some phase 2 maps, so far I have created a new C3M1 for phase 1.

Yeah, I had a break for ten years whilst I got my shit together (SPOILER: I still don't got my shit together). I'm not the most prolific mapper by far, but I've been around a bit.

Why do I do this to myself?

Attempting a Sandy Petersen-esque map and I'm (probably) about halfway there. For the record, the square structure in the south-east? 1024x1024 - people have put entire MAPS into that space. D:

Oh my, it's a demonic Pac Man. Love FreeDoom's new soulsphere replacement.

Unrelated to the DW changeover, I've been archiving my old maps today; including extracting them from other WADs. No idea why I felt like doing this; and pretty sad that some of my older levels are lost to the aether.

Wouldn't be terrible of me to make a new 900 Lines episode (recycling some of my 100 Lines maps in the process) whilst I'm struggling with The Becoming E2M9 would it? Might anyway, like.

I notice you can link Twitter to the new forums? Now. Dare I do such a thing given that I'm apparently a huge shitlord on there? :P

Why not play some DOOM?

Had this dream last night (are all my blog posts going to be about dreams in one way or another? I'll let you know after my next sleep!) where I was upset. Like, truly and utterly depressed about a few things.

Namely, spending three years at University (studying animation) only to be too ashamed of the experience to collect my degree certificate; the whole journey of identifying as an artist and all the pretentious horsewank that goes with that; and the following three years of joblessness in one form or another.

Not just doleful unemployment, as I've been prone to anxiety/depression for most of my adult life -- and my father getting ill from cancer and passing away exacerbated this no end. A year or so ago, the powers-that-be declared that I can't claim any sickness benefit/allowance for this (UK government looking to kick everybody off disability benefits eventually, it would seem), so I'm looking for work.

Now, a part of this 'looking for work' thing is looking for the actual work. But, where I live is pretty much a cultural and economic void; an ex-mining area with little-to-nothing to offer since the pits were shut down, so there's a few decades of stagnancy there. Jobs are thin on the ground, and a lot of other unemployed people in the area means that it ain't happening in a hurry. And so, I turned my eyes toward freelance illustration.

Now. I don't know how much anyone here knows about freelancing, but it's kinda like this. It's not a job. Unless a job involves standing in a desert trying to shoot down the occasional buzzard or vulture for food, and that's all you have to live on until you can shoot the next one. Now think about how many people actually want or need art in their lives.

Chasing up clients (or 'would-be' clients, since everyone seems to want artwork right up until they have to pay for it, but that's another rant) far outweighs the stress of any real job I've had. I've done a few things; mainly caricature portraits of clients' loved-ones, but I also (for a short while) drew a comic strip for a local radio station's website. None of which pays well. Right now, I haven't had a client for months. I'm not even sure I want to draw anymore, paid or not.

My dream last night was mainly me despairing that I've come to this, and I woke up feeling exactly the fucking same.

I'm trying to get back to my art. Hell, I've attempted to get back to a comic that I started before my three years of University.



Here's an unfinished page of Trashfield. In itself, I was working out a plot arc about some students who start University (hey, write what you know. Right?) in a crap town (again, write what you know) which is taken over by zombies (write what you-bollocks, I want some chaos :3 ). My love of independent and alternative comics shows through here, as I go for a raw grittiness that is so different to the sheen and polish of Big Two comics -- which is how I like it.

In the UK, the alternative comics scene is largely dead. I used to have this 'spark', this inclination that I had my niche right there; that I could be a voice in the silence or something.

I don't know now. I lost what inspired me to get the hell on with this (and to a lesser extent a webcomic I used to do for fun).

I may, however, finish that Trashfield page off. It is lying around after I dug it out to scan it. At least then, I'll have done something. For the first time in months.

I had my first crazy dream in ages. I love it when that happens, but it's been very rare of late.

It was on the news: the UK Government revealed the REAL reason they've been making all the 'austerity' cuts to public services and welfare -- to fund a thing called Project Penelope, which was a village-sized UFO designed to orbit the Earth and be self-sufficient and only house the rich people of the UK so they could bugger off and leave this piece of crap country to the peons. It looked like two neon-blue sloped hexagon-shaped structures, pressed together like a burger bun but they rotated in opposing directions.

It was also reportedly the same thing seen above protests in Brazil, which was supposed to be a 'secret' test or something.

I did not, unfortunately, wake up wearing a tin-foil hat. I'm not a 'believer' as it were, but I love crazy dreams because sometimes I rip them off for storylines of my own things.

I don't know.

I had this crazy dream, where I was in a kingdom and threatened with banishment unless I could slay the beast in the moat surrounding the castle. ONWARD I GO!

I can remember diving out of bed like it was important, and taking to the floor. I was not, however, on the floor. I had dived out of the castle and into a small wooden dinghy, and was circling the castle as it towered over me. I gazed at the surrounding forest and took in the chill of the twilight air, hoping to prove my worth. I looked back at the castle and felt crestfallen; I was really enjoying that sleep.

That sleep? Ah, yes! In a sudden, the castle morphed into the bed, and the forest became the various furniture littered around the room. I was not in a dinghy, I was lay on the floor; half-asleep in the cold.

I got back into bed, a bit embarrassed. This has never happened before. I'm not sure it was sleep-walking per se, but it was weird. I don't even.

Y'know, it bothered me that when I came back to Doomworld I couldn't remember my old password and get my old account back. Signed in as 'ComicMischief' because that's a handle I use elsewhere sometimes, but it just wasn't the same, man...

...I mean, a quick Google search revealed some teen-angsty old blogs of mine on here with bad spelling and references to things I've since forgotten and are now incomprehensible, and I should be embarrassed but damn man - it was me!

I remembered the password. Just now. Actually, I came across an old blog on here whilst seeing if there was any chance in hell I uploaded my old Heretic levels anywhere but my old Geocities. Nope. But somehow I remembered through ten years of password changes and got the account back. Fuck yes.

New guys here, you don't need to know what I just said. Old guys, if you remember who the fuck I was (I made a leaving post at some point a decade ago and got words to the effect, hahahah). It's great to have the old underwear back, is all.

Also something something Murderous Intent 2... (I'm kidding)

I've done a few of these. They're dumb.

Been playing Heretic a lot recently. I tend to go through phases where I play something a hell of a lot to the detriment of all else. Heretic is the current game I'm doing this with. The levels aren't up to much, visually, but the weapons are awesome, and it's so much fun to play.

Hah, college is finally going fine again, since I busted my ass, and went overboard with it. I've now got my final major project nearly ready to be handed in... with only two weeks to spare.

Never mind. I could do with some more spare time ;)

...I need something to focus on, since I just became single, this very morning, yay.

So, anyways, till I get a new monitor (Better than the 16-colour display I'm forced to work with right now), I'm doing all the planning on paper, with a pen.

Spent the night last night crucnhing numbers. I like the monster balance I've got, it all works out well. I mean, I'm going to havwe to adjust damages and things (probably DDF) so that all figures are EXACT, as opposed to this little random thing Doom tends to do, but this should add a new flavour to the gameplay. Bear in mind, how much I love my shmups, so this is going to be a lot of fun.

I'm also drafting in a friend who has absolutely no experience in Doom editing to help; he's got a good knowledge of 3D space, through his model and stage set making experience, and he used to work for Games Workshop; he's going over my figures to make sure they work, which by and large -- they do.

This is, of course, audacious. To think that I can adjust a classic game's balance to make it better. But in all, it's an experiment, as a precursor to a much larger project, possibly a univeristy portfolio filler. But then, by taking development away from a PC, and making things work in a "real" context first, I think this will turn out to be something very special. Not innovative in any way, just very, very finely honed.

I'll post details if anybody shows interest ;)

So, the planning for my new proj is going as smoothly as possibly can without a working monitor :D

Given that I'm changing game balance, I can do a lot of working out purely on paper, using math. Damn, you know you're a geek when you can do that.

This thing is going to rock. It's going to play more traditionally (In terms of "old-school" play mechanics) than most Doom projects, due to the simple changes I'm making... certainly have some VERY interesting ideas here. And, given my love of boss levels in games, look for lots of "set-piece" encounters. When I can gets me a freakin' monitor, heh.

I can't think off the top of my head how to describe how this will play, but it'll be an interesting experiment, diversion even, if nothing else.

And for all you narratology-whores out there; the atmospherics will be as good as I can get them. Story is basically already written (Since I'm using an old one of mine). Working title of "Necros"... that's about all I can really tell at the moment.

I mean, I'd scan some planning sketches, but nobody ever previews a WAD like that... hey, maybe I ought to ;)

I feel creative. VERY creative. I had an idea for such a kickass level theme... and my monitor is still broken. I wanted to spend the night drawing textures, and later make a map.

You might have to newproject me when I get a new monitor. :p

I think the time is right for me to work on the levelset I've been wanting to. Probably be for EDGE, though because I can 'do' extrafloors and vertical lighting with it (Yeah, I know "Blah blah otherport can do blah. SHUT UP. Between college, I don't want to learn anything new. Too stressed).

The official line is that I'm not working on Murderous Intent 2 anymore, because I'm fed up with the sequel thing altogether; the mindset, the mentality. It no longer floats my boat.

Hmmm... well, I guess I can do some planning on paper, since I've never done that for a wad before. Let me reel off the planned features;

- LEVELS! This level set has levels!
- MONSTERS! There are monsters in the levels!
- WEAPONS! You can pick up weapons to kill monsters!
- POWREUPS! Ditto!
- FEATURES! This wad will be utterly devoid of bandwagonesque features!

Sorry about the sarcasm. I'm in a negative mood, possibly because a split with my girlfriend is looming. Sorry y'all. I'm going to need some outlet to get over this. You'll see another map from me soon.

Well, I usually blog instead on my livejournal (Mostly locked to friends only these days, apart from when I show off artwork), but I'm blogging here, since my recent LJ posts are weirdass things like how there's a BREAST on one of the wallmounts in our local Subway. Not a vegetable, a BREAST.

Anyways, for the curious ("Who the hell is this?") here's me;



Taken at college in September. Yes, pink hair. It's all black now. Alltogether now with the chants of "Goth" if you want, but I'll make some sorry excuse how I'm not, and all that. You know the drill :P

Also, check my page for artwork and stuff, which I spend a lot of time doing.

Anyways, blogging. Wow, it's been a helluva year. March now. Wow. This is an entire year since I was last discharged from my local Mental Health Ward. Wish I was kidding you, folks. Depression got reaal bad, and a year since, I've picked things up. Doing well at college (I'm there again!), got my own place (Yay, no annoying parents) and a gorgeous girlfriend (No, I'm not posting a pic. Perverts :P Actually, had I any, I would. I may have to get handy with the ol' scanner). Things are working out.

And I'm back here, DW. I loves you guys, you knows it (Yes, GLC). I don't know how go the editing, because my monitor's broken, so I'm probably going to make the leap and go flatscreen ^_^. Maybe. I'm toying around with making a level to display some gameplay concepts I'm toying with. Nothing revolutionary, just basic gameplay stuff, refined and unified completely. Should be fun.

Yeah, I'm a biiiig nerd now, when it comes to ludology (Noun: Study of gameplay, basically). I started to hate talking games at college, because nobody knows what I'm talking about when I blather on about manipulating virtual space, time management and peripheral factors... I'm writing a paper. I'm not even at uni yet, and I'm writing a bloody paper on something that nobody has a bleeding clue about. Well, the literati and academia seem to have at least half a clue.

What? Videogames are, as we're all told, as a media very much in their infancy. There are tons of concepts and ideas waiting to be discovered, or in my case recognised. At some point in the paper, I'm probably going to use Doom as an example of axes within dimensions... Doom is indeed 2D in gamplay terms, but not by the classically recognised standard, since in terms of manipulable spatial dimensions, X,Y and Z don't really cut it -- they're merely axes of one form of manipulation, one dimension. Of a possible three (Manipulable dimensions; Position, Angle and Size of a player entity. Since Doom has no crouch as standard, the player's size never changes - crouching makes the entities' are smaller - therefore we have manipulation of position; 2 axes; and angle; 1 axis). Lost you? I guess I really need to finish the damn paper. I feel like I've discovered the motherfucking videogame atom here, metaphorcally speaking. Being a far-lefty, I'll share the info when it's properly realised, so that (theoretically) y'all can be playing far better user-made levels. Or if I make it into The Industry, better games. Who doesn't want that? ;)

I'd love this to turn into a discussion, if anybody has any kind of feedback to this waffle. ^_^

Hmmm... I rambled. In such a way I can't on LJ, under my friends' scrutiny. Heh.

Told you blogs are llame, this is proof ;). Well, ciao.

[edit]This read (less) like Japanese, so I clarified a bit.[/edit]

I'm funny. Seriously.

By goodbye I mean hello. Just dropping in, I have a break between my busy college and social life. Heh.

I'm toying round with the idea of going back to editing (AGAIN) actually. Nothing major, probably just a map with some custom textures. Since college work forced me to get a new computer that doesn't totally suck (For the record, my crusty P200 dies, I now have a cheap P3-800... it'll do).

So, ah, HI FELLAS!!!!

Glad to see that some of the old faces are still here.

J

Fuck, whee. I'm enjoying college far too much these days, hell yeah. I've started something called Multimedia, which roughly translates as "Fucking around with computers. And a bit of art". Right up my street then. Wow, wow wow.

I'm really REALLY enjoying it -- possibly more than I should. Plus, the Token Cute Girl of the course and I are getting on famously... and I'm such a dillweed that I have not the guts to ask her out, even though I'm almost 100% certain she likes me... heh. Me fails it.

Although, something really cool about this course is that we'll do a fuckload of Photoshop stuff. Whee, cool. I'm only a big, BIGTIME Photoshop whore, and I guess I'll have to show my skills at that as well as my drawing skills -- we were required to draw still figures who would only pose for a couple of minutes. We were instructed that details and shading aren't important, as it's an excercise in merely drawing the shapes we see. Guess who shaded and added fine details all in the requisite amount of time ^___^

Then we had to draw with our Band Hand (tm) - in my case, the left. NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Cute Girl (tm) posed for that one. Her name's Morgan, by the way. I all of a sudden developed tourettes, as I struggled to get my lazy left hand to actually draw, and draw well -- this is the one person I have to get right, otherwise I'm not a happy bunny. Morgan is absolutely gorgeous, and I really wanted to capture it.

Because of the fact that we used out Bad Hands, Morgan had to pose* for ten whole minutes. Ouch. I took it slowly, to get it right, and actually didn't get around to the fine detail or shading; just the shapes. The result? Absolutely amazing, really. Painful though it is, I may have to draw more stuff with the Wrong Hand, because I haven't got my well-worn right hand's muscle memory betraying me at every step... I wonder if the same will work with textures...? Nope, cause I literally do them pixel-by-pixel. Never mind.

[*; With her clohtes on. Gorgeous nonetheless ;) ]

Back on the subject of Doom; the New Project (Cause I've now officially binned what I had with Intent2) is going on slowly (College, go figure), but great. All I'm doing is textures, and I swear they're some of the best lowres Doom textures I've ever seen... although rocks are beyond my resources, I've stolen some of those :D

Fans of Quake2 / The Darkening / Murderous Intent will love it, that's for sure... although I'm still, even now, thinking of new (As in "Shock, horror, I've not seen that before) concepts for it, but some are mightily leftfield, and may not be seen in the final project. I'm even going to find a way to justify the time spent on it by using it somehow for college work :D

Well, that's all I have to say in this bloggier-than-thou blog,
This is Darth Jrrr signing off ;)

Well, I'm almost starting (yet) another college course, so that means less social time (Tiredness) so I'll get back to editing fully. Whee, I'll be teh hermit again. So, Intent 2.

I've not been actively mapping on it, but when I'm not doing that, I tend to think things out concept-wise.
And I've been thinking about Murderous Intent2;

I always planned a sequel levelset -- if anybody read the readme file, a rough story was outlined wheras you escaped the mining facility, and headed toward the city where you'd escape Mars for Earth. Well, that said, it was supposed to be a MegaWAD, with the three "episodes" (skies) being Mars, Space, Earth -- essentially 32 levels of pure techbasery (Not a word, I know). Too much work for one stress-ridden individual.

So, as seperate levelsets now, I planned MI2 to be the Space episode. Then I released Intent, and people liked it. There was call for more of the same, more or less, and I didn't really feel I did the theme justice with the rough maps I did (Being that they were my coming of age, really. map04 remains unchanged architecturally as the sixth map I *ever* made!).

So as it stands, Intent 2 is a retelling of the first.

However, I've been playing the original now, and feeling half disgust at my early maps, and half pride at how good some of teh areas are, and I don't know whether to remake the first intent as part of the second, and do the space episode that I really want to do now (Overflowing with ideas -- I love Vrack, so I always wanted to do my own "version", darker in feel and spread across several smaller maps.)

Although, this puts me in a little heap of contestation -- if I actually re-release (So to speak, I'll tody them up something chronic, and completely rehaul the gameplay) the same seven maps, Then there are going to be big complaints. Nobody likes rereleases, right? Even if I'm going to add all the new Intent2 stuff to these.

Also, there's the fact that I planned the Space Episode as just that; an episode, with a start. How can I force a pistol start on map12? I can't, really. Not even with map11 ending in a player death, because some people will complain at being handed no health whilst they struggle to keep all the weapons.

So I thought; make it in Ultimate Doom. This means no archviles, I know, but I'm waaaaay too fond of those anyway (And might, one day, make a dedicated Archvile wad -- there's a lot that can be done with them in a gameplay sense that hasn't been done). But it also means that I can't exactly keep the same Intent feel; I'd have to make the ealier levels easy, and baron-less for the E1M7 setpiece to work. Therefore, I keep Spidies and Cybies out of the way till later.

To me that would improve the gameplay, but I'll alienate anybody that wanted a "more-of-the-same-but-better" sequel (Which, until yesterday, was what I was heading toward).

This would also cover the fact that I'm running into a wall trying to remake the same themes (Mining, warehouse, et cetera) in a different vein for the sequel; if I just polish (perfect, to my mind) up the old maps, I've essentially got seven layouts I can re-use. I'm not lazy, I just like doing different things, instead of remaining stuck on one.

In short, I really, REALLY want to remake the old levels; they're flawed genius, I think, and could really do with a facelift (All custom textures, new effects). I also REALLY want to keep the three maps I've done as yet for Intent2. I also REALLY REALLY want to do a space episode, and the start level I'm craving to do (It'll be worth it). Therefore, I might do this;

A 3-episode (Actually, I might even go for a bonus fourth) Ultimate Doom WAD that would encapsulate everything I'm after doing;
Episode 1; Murderous Intent, remade.
Episode 2; The Space Episode I want to do.
Episode 3; Storyline dictates a return trip to Mars, after a sabotaged space journey.

But I don't know -- I feel like it's a little blasphemous to retread those old levels (Trivia: MI2 was originally titled "Blasphemous Intent", due to my dislike of real sequels). What shall I do?

...except maybe the fact that around noon today a warehouse at the bottom of my street caught fire, and the whole building went up.

I went to check it out about 3PM; there was black smoke pouring into the town centre and the building couldn't be seen for flame and smoke. Damn.

So anyways, my concern goes toward my house; it's roughly about 20 meters from aforementioned warehouse's grounds. I ask a fire official, and apparently the fire hasn't spread to the houses. Good.

Not good. I just got word that my street has been EVACUATED, and residents are to kip in the local leisure centre until the damage can be worked out - the warehouse is in danger of falling, and the fire people cannot figure out which direction. So, wheras nothing ever happens in my neighbourhood, it has. And I feel like I'm up the creek without so much as a popsicle stick. Dang.

In other news; life sucks, blah blah blah -- I actually can't think of anything but the impending doom of Chez Jrrr, due to a potentially hazardous burnt-out building. Fuck.

Darth Jrrr out.

Well yeah. A worthwhile entry from the Darth Jrrr? Maybe.

Doom2 on GBA. Let me face facts, I got it for one reason alone; DM. It's a fair enough translation in SP (Miles better than the original) but the DM, now I've played it, is awful.

Well, I say awful but I mean; I'm a purist. I can live with the PSX version not allowing me to play orginal DM, but at least -altdeath is represented well. Not so GBA. For some reason, they're made certain powerups respaen in DM that shouldn't. I'm talking mainly the invisibilty orbs. Dagnammit, that makes the DM-playable (In my humbled opinion) level total drop from two, to one.

Yeah, MAP01 is still quite fun, but what good is one map? Well, good enough for half an hour, as it worked out, but my GBA Doom2-owning friend isn't exactly the kind of Doom obsessive who can play MAP01 all day. Damn.

Well, at least that's only slightly LESS of a disappointment to finding out how much of an explorefest Sonic Advance 3 really is (If you want the emeralds)... fucking game. It's forced me to playing the first; in retrospect not too bad, but not Sonic Advance 2 (Still rocks my socks). Why can't they remake Sonic the Hedgehog (Original) for the GBA, with some added Time Attack modes and all, without butchering it like the Saturn Sonic Jam version? I'm sure it would sell well, given the amount of Sonic Kiddies out there still... but that's Sega all over; no business sense.

Oh well. At least I've got the NiGHTS GBA demo to look forward to. WHEN I can be arsed to even play Billy Hatcher. Fucking game - don't get me started.

OKay, so I had a weekend indoors, despite the heat, gaming. That's all I do anyway.

Darth Jrrr signing off.

Do you know what I think is stupid? Not knowing there was a mole on my neck THAT COULD HAVE ONLY BEEN THERE ALL MY LIFE until I shaved the fucking head off it this morning. Blood everywhere, I shoulda scanned my neck and used it for hell textures :p

(Note: Had I a scanner, I probably would have done, rofl)

Oooh, yeah. I've been trying some subtle things with Intent2... I've reverted to the old, simple Intent1 sky cause it gets the right atmosphere (And the more detailed skies I knocked up from Hexen graphics and the like just didn't "do it" for me.). Speaking of atmosphere, though - I could add a HELLUVA lot just by tweaking the colour palette... to make it more like I'd imagine Mars to be like, all I've got to do is make the least red damage palette the standard one... only problem with this is that it makes everything that's grey look a bit brown. And a lot of the greens. So, you know, I'd get the "OMFG this is too like quake all brown just like poop!" retards shuffling their retarded vernacular my way. Uhm.... nope.

Also, I toyed with slightly yellowing the palette, but this effect is even worse for the brown-ness. I'm toying with the idea of some interactive easter eggs in Intent 2, and just more in general. I included ONE in the Map01 demo I sent to about five people nearly two years back, and thought it was a cool thing to do. Then Action Doom happened. Love it, but it kinda beat me to the entire thing. Damn.

Well, at least I *do* have some new concepts... somewhere, I'm sure :D

I actually dreamt that I completed MAP04 last night... w00t. Now if ONLY I could remember how I *did* such a convincing 3D bridge with just stock BOOM effects... nah, dreams ain't worth shit. Wishful thinking on my part.

Wish I could find an alternative to cmaptool that I could use with Heretic, though. NEED coolass underwater colormaps. I can't wait until I'm free enough to do for Heretic what I'm doing with Intent2 (Oh dear, a little teaser statement for anybody whom might care :D) ;)

I'm also toying around with releasing 2 versions of Intent2 with different soundtracks... one in .mod format for ZDoom users, so I can show off a bit more with my musical "creativity"...

OT: http://profiles.yahoo.com/jayextee <-- Anyone like my hair? Man, it's about a couple of inches longer than that now, and I can STILL do the same style. It's kinda half pink, half black now as well. Whomever would have thought that I would have gotten out of a depression by identifying with society's alternative, unwanted underbelly? Well, kind of. It didn't hurt :D But I'm proud, dagnammit!

Anyways, I'm one out of seven Chaos Emeralds richer on Sonic Advance 3, and absolutely loathing Cream or Tails as either player or partner... They didn't make Sonic the fastest ever platform game to play slowly and fly around everywhere, now *did* they?

And I'm toying with resurrecting an old comic strip I used to do about a year ago. It should rule, given my "skillz0rz" and shit with the scribbling.

Well, this is Darth Jrrr signing off. Again.

Seriously, guys, I don't keep a livejournal or anything so I'm blogging here. Tell me if it gets too much, ja? ;)

Anyways. Latest news; Jay hates Doom 2. No really, I fucking detest it for the most part, lately. It's a real great game filled with some of the lousiest levels I've ever had the misfortune to play. Yes, I know I just set the place on fire, but this is a blog, and I'm merely venting an opinion.

Well, anyway; my reasoning. Games are, at the very simplest, an interactive tool for the manipulation of virtual space and time in artificial environments. I could explain that if you wanted, but I'll leave it at that for now. Anyways, it is of my opinion that a good game will present the player with as much opportunity as is possible to manipulate said space, and violation of this principle will make a game less fun to play. Hence, I dislike Doom2's levels. To start with, they're a helluva lot more linear than the much-loved (And rightly so) Episode 1, plus a lot of them feature far too cramped spaces, or far too open spaces; two very uncomfortable extremes.

To me, all space within a level in a game should have some playable worth. A lot of Doom2's virtual space is nigh on worthless. Of course, I'm not arguing on a per-sector basis, because decoration is important in a narratological sense to set a basic atmosphere and theme. But if a sector is navigable by the player (Or monsters that the player can interact with; still a manipulation of space thus) then it is playable space. And not all of Doom2's space is well used -for example, how many people actually travers all corners of MAP30 for any reason? There's no reason to. Then why is the level shaped as is? My point here is that all navigable space represents potential gameplay, and "wasted" space like this merely feels to me to be just that - wasted. It's gameplay I'm missing out on, potentially.

And don't even get me started on varying heights and the abuse of autoaim that is forced upon the player from Doom2's levels.

Of course, by now I'm the hypocrite; many of the principals I've mentioned I violated with Murderous Intent. Well, all I can say is look forward to the sequel. It's not perfect (Levels are still not as nonlinear as I'd like, alas, but they're a lot better) but IMHO a step in the right direction.

I'm playtesting Mi2 a hell of a lot. I want it to be as good as I can ofer at this point. I'm playing all the levels I have as yet about twice a day. I play roughly 10,000% of the time I spend editing, because that's what it's about for me; passion. I still love Doom2; I was lying above, for the sake of a highly flammable intro. But when I consider that Doom2, a game which I believe to stand up favourably against today's titles, is as flawed as it is, I stop to think what kind of crap the Industry is churning out these days, and what little I can do to rectify that.

Well, that was my two cents,
Darth Jrrr signing off.

[edit]Edited for spelling (Some may remain, but it at least reads well now)[/edit]

Anyway. Another genuine blog thing from Darth Jrrr (Ask my housemates about that one... :D). I thought I'd elaborate; yes you guys, I'm alive and back.

Man did I have a pile of shit thrust upon me, life-wise. Drugs, suicide attempts, alcoholism, splits and manic depression. All water under the bridge now, and Videogames have been there for me, as opposed to my family or friends... how about some support you guys?

Nah, never mind. I can go it alone.

Yeah, so. A RL update for you guys; Jayextee is well and kicking. I'm working feverishly (Lie. I'm working slowly) on Murderous Intent 2, playtesting it roughly 500% of the time I spend editing to make sure it's as right as it can get. I'm including whatever effects I can to make this look as good as I can get it without going silly with the detail; I'm still running the P200, by the way guys, but depending on a loan or something, I may be getting a new Puter... something that can at least run GLEdge at a passable enough rate for me to use a gazillion sectors on vertical lighting for the Exhumed TC (I've done some experiments; slow, but good-looking lighting is possible. With enough dedication, you can fake lightmaps :D).

And, I'm working toward something very good, games theory-wise, that I can apply to level designing. The result; things from me get better. When they get finished.

Anyways, it's great to be back, people.

Non-Doom update; Sonic Advance 3 has the best soundtrack since Sonic CD (European and Japanese MegaCD version) IMHO. Love it. What's the deal with the CastleVania levels? Dunno, but I love it. Still not as good as Advance2, but there you go. And my Amy/Sonic speed combo rocks your petty little white socks. I'm loving time trials in this; the levels are a little messy, but it's stil waaaaay better than Sonic Advance 1 (Let it be said; the only Sonic I've not even attempted to get all the emeralds on). Piece of crap.

Well, I've got some nice music for an upcoming Sonic project I'm (Als very slowly) working on... I've no idea what it will be (Either an Edge mod, a ZDoom mod or a Kilk'n'play thing, if I can get the physics right... only the title, 'Sonic Gaiden'... sounds Japanesey enough to fit, and the title works... I'm not recruiting yet, but the music I've got (That's all as yet, bar some planning) is very Sonic-y... I love it.

Yes, I fucking LOVE the Sonic games. It's all about Sonic, Doom, Puyo Puyo, StreetFighter and CastleVania for me...

This is Darth Jrrr, force neutral, signing off.

Well, MAP04 of Intent2, the first I'm working on since the year-and-a-half hiatus, is comin g on nicely. Did anybody every use the Boom "translucent flats" trick that I helped to discover? I have, and there are some real purrrty looking ceiling windows done with it; it's a real nice decorative trick that works well with ceilings and, to a lesser extent, floors (I've experimented).

MAP04 is, as yet, very light on theme, since I'm working most on layout, although there is a central area that looks like a parade ground, maybe I'll call it a barracks or something.

Some nice Q2-inspired details in places, and already a secret area (Easy to figure).

I'll probably use some of the new textures I recently did in this level, too... already used a couple of new flats.

Should I put a cybie in this map, or wait till MAP07?...? There's the space, but maybe I should have the player pummel a legion of Cacos or somrthing. I should write music for this map, too. None of what I've got suits it... actually I might rewrite the lot, save for the MAP02 and MAP03 tunes... they're cool enough.

Non-Doom wise, I just got SOnic Advance 3. Completed it in a day :|. Sonic Advance 2 still rox my sox... maybe I should do something Sonic-inspired... ;)