BBelief 2008 – Visual Storytelling

One thing that has bugged me a lot about Quake environments – especially now that I’m taking another look 12 years later – is how sterile they often feel. That’s not a new complaint, of course. Back in ’96, several print reviews expressed the same sentiment – undoubtedly still under the impression of a recently released Duke Nukem 3D, which created a much more intricate world. Most of Quake’s sterility can be attributed to the game’s lack of visual storytelling.

As explained in my earlier post, visual storytelling is all about adding a sense of history and purpose to the 3D environments that the player traverses. A well done 3D level never feels like it was built for the player (or, by extension, for the game). A good environment feels like has its own identity. The more the player feels like he is passing through a living, breathing place (or better yet, the more he feels like he is trespassing), the better.

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Unreal 2 Editing Tutorials

My Unreal 2 tutorials had fallen victim to the page redesign. But fear not if you’re still looking for U2 editing help! Hellkeeper has integrated all of my old content into his tutorial page, dug up all of the old documentation, and fixed all outdated links. He’s even translated each tutorial into French, if you feel more comfortable with that. Wanna dig into some oldschool Unreal 2 editing? Go visit the page by clicking on the image below!

BBelief 2008 – Burning The Midnight Oil

If there haven’t been a lot of updates on Beyond Belief 2008 lately it’s because I’ve resisted the urge to post simple editing blurbs like “And now I’ve added this room! Take a look!” With nobody having played the level those posts wouldn’t make much sense, anyway. And if I explained every little detail you wouldn’t have to play the level anymore because I’d already have spoiled everything!

With that said, my output has definitely decreased in the last couple of weeks, and that’s for a very simple reason: the Olympics are over.

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BBelief2008 Focus

The weekend was filled with racing, so I didn’t do much level editing. So now might be a good time to discuss the criteria that I apply when making decisions about what goes into Beyond Belief 2008 and what doesn’t. And to muse about guiding principles in general.

When embarking on any artistic endeavor, it’s good to establish focus early on. On multi-faceted projects, these principles help the author determine which ideas should be included in the work and which ones should be left out. This is true for many creative undertakings: commercial games, books, screenplays, movie… It’s true for hobby levels, as well. So here’s the guiding principle I established for BBelief2008:

I want to evoke fond memories of the original Quake.

That’s a decidedly mundane ambition, especially if you consider that 12 years have passed in which the Quake community has moved on to much grander projects. Looks like my plan is to make a map that amounts to nothing more than a tribute level. But this guideline makes a lot of sense to me for various reasons:

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Quake Expo 2008 and an Interview

Have you heard of Quake Expo? I hadn’t until a few weeks ago, when I stumbled across the 2006 page. Basically, Quake Expo is an effort by the still existing editing community for classic Quake to shine a light on all the editing efforts that are keeping the games alive. There’s virtual booths where people present their work, and various events like speedmapping and speedmodding. Pretty cool.

There’s another Quake Expo this year, and my two items of note are a Beyond Belief 2008 booth that I opened (mostly a recap of material that I’m posting on this page). And an interview with me on Quaddicted. That interview was conducted before I’d got the mad idea to make a new Quake map, btw, which is why none of the work is touched upon.

BBelief2008 Level Flow

One of the fun parts about making this level is that I don’t have to worry at all about planning ahead. That’s the way of working that comes naturally to me: I never planned out my levels in the Doom and Quake days. I just started working on something and discovered where the level would take me.

You can’t do that in today’s professional game development, of course. When working with a team on a commercial game, things tend to be much more planned out from the start. Every level has a place in the game. The start and finish are usually predetermined. Certain story points need to be hit, specific gameplay elements need to be utilized. And things are so complex today, with several people working on the same environment, that the level needs to be roughed out as early as possible. So that the environment artists can start working on the building blocks. So that lighting artists (if the game has them) can start thinking about the look of the level. So that gameplay elements (which might not necessarily all be proven out yet) can be tested as early as possible – in the levels that they’re supposed to appear in.

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Beyond Belief 2008

In the last two weeks I’ve been working on a little side project, purely for the fun of it. And fun it has been! Straight-forward, old-fashioned Quake. An expected audience of 27. Maybe 28. But that’s the cool part, I don’t have to live up to any expectations that come with modern, professional 3D games. I just get to this for myself, doodle in 3D and remember old times (I’ve always done a lot of level design work while watching the Olympics).

I’m using BSP for this, which I started using back in 1997 after finishing the original Beyond Belief. It’s great to still see the editor maintained, it works in Vista without a hitch. Running Quake in a floating window for easy map checks certainly is an improvement over the old DOS days

I’m not sure when the level will be released, but I’m determined to finish it. I’ll post more information later.

Beyond Belief in EZQuake

I have added video of two Beyond Belief levels to the Quake page. I played the game using EZQuake and the high-res textures, which is pretty damn neat. Much updated graphics! Particle trails, coronas, distance fog, water effects… gives the game a whole new dimension. Check out these 1600×1200 screenshots, and head over to the Quake page to watch the video!

There’s a few definite problems with EZQuake, most stemming from the fact that it’s mostly designed to be a modern QuakeWorld client with multiplayer capabilities. Getting a single-player game going is a bit of a pain in the ass, especially for the uninitiated player. And a few items don’t seem to behave the way they did in regular Quake. The first BBelief map has an elevator that lowers the first Nailgun that the player gets, plus a monster, and this event is completely broken. The gun hovers in the air – it’s impossible to reach it, and the monster is nowhere to be found.

Those are definite annoyances, but checking out a bunch of maps is still a lot of fun!

Now Playing: Etrian Odyssey

The Gamestop in Petaluma is a weird little shop: when I couldn’t find Etrian Odyssey a year ago because it had sold out everywhere, I found that the Petaluma shop had several copies in stock. Now that Etrian Odyssey 2 is out,  I once again couldn’t find the game anywhere – until I went to the Petaluma Gamestop. The curious thing is that now that I own Etrian Odyssey 2, I’m playing the first part again, while saving the new one for an undetermined upcoming vacation.

I was hooked on Etrian Odyssey last year. Played it night and day, ignoring the big consoles and all books I’d been reading at the time. After many years, I was addicted to an oldschool RPG again. I mapped out dungeons, I killed monsters, I leveled up. Etrian Odyssey’s gameplay is a tried and true formula that appeals to our basic need to explore – something that Clint Hocking explained much more eloquently than I ever could in his 2007 GDC talk.

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Speed Beyond Belief Lite – The Movie

As I’m verifying the links to all of my old Quake and Doom files, I keep finding cool stuff. The Beyond Belief speedruns were great back in the day. What I didn’t know is that the QDQ team had also recorded video versions of the speedruns, which make it so much easier to watch. Here’s the SBB2 Lite Run:

Video currently offline.


This is my own Flash version of the movie. It’s kind of crappy compared to the real deal. If you would like to see the run in 640×480 with less compression artifacts, go to the official SBB Page and download their .avi file. You can also snatch a second version of the run in first person view.

I’m still getting acquainted with the Flash movie player, and with hosting these movies on my own server. I’ll have to see how much bandwidth the streaming of these files is taking, and if the servers are fast enough. Please let me know how well this is working out for you!