Bill Spencer

UNREAL MAPS

NEW 3/3/04: EXERCISE This started as a speedmap (quickly made) intended to be an Unreal Zero map more friendly to the first-time player, but got expanded in both its teaching function and bizarreness. It starts off easy, with the main weapons introduced with appropriate targets and helpful tip messages (out of the the way at the top of the screen) and ramps up to a full challenge by the end. more screens For Unreal (all versions) or UT w/ Unreal music: u0exercise (99 KB) For Unreal Tournament or Unreal 226 w/ UT music: u0exercise_ut (99 KB)

CATS 2

This is a Unreal Zero level based around a large bright open outdoor setting, with terrain and additional areas creating a range of battle situations. A minimalistic story is told, mainly through events happening.. With around 190 kills, this level should keep you busy over an hour. A determined, half-decent player with full knowledge of Unreal weapons and creatures, or equivalent, should be able to complete it on Easy ... Medium offers a serious, yet fair challenge for skilled players and Hard is one step short of insane.

The Unreal soundtrack is used extensively (9 tracks), and a UT music version is available (otherwise identical). Unreal music excels in the "dark mysterious" category but UT offers plenty of favorites as well. See readme for filenames and play tips.

                     more

CATS micro-episode
These 2 levels can be played as standalone or as a series. To play as a set, simply complete Cat Bombs with Cats 2 installed. For Cats 2, a standalone start area is provided: 3 weapons are given immediately, with "par" ammo; the other three Cat Bombs weapons may be found near the start. On the other hand, as a continuation, starting stats depend on how you do on the first level (+20 health is added).

CAT BOMBS
Unreal Zero Concept Demo

This is a rough, basic level, not for the "quality over quantity" folks, released because I wanted something for people to try this concept for themselves! But it also leads into Cats 2. A track of my music is included instead of using Unreal's -- this is a "hard rock" level ;).
download .. Requires Unreal 226 or UT. (1.09 MB, 3rd beta 1/9/04 -- UT fixes)....

more
                                                                                                                                                                      carnage!
Tip for the very last jump: inertia is your friend.

UNREAL PLAY INFO

Tested with Unreal AND Unreal Gold patched to 226f, AND Unreal Tournament (GOTY Edition) 432 and 436, Athlon XP2000+, 256MB DDR RAM, GeForce2 MX (integrated), Win98 (original). 225 conversion tested with UT and Unreal 224v -- I could not get 224v to run properly under DirectX (probably Nvidia issue), OpenGL worked with good framerate but needed brightness adjustment in Windows settings to not be too dark, and still looked different.

Unreal: Start the game with the according console command. For medium Cat Bombs: open u0cats_b3 ... otherwise add difficulty: open u0cats_b3?difficulty=0 ... Original Unreal defaults to software rendering, be sure to change. Later versions such as 226f (more here) give improved performance.

Unreal Tournament: It is not necessary to install any original Unreal files except for music in some Cats 2 versions. To play in plain UT, use the console and open command *without* starting any UT game. There is no savegame and a few sleepy enemies. To avoid this and get some other enhancements, install Oldskool Amp'd; the Lite version is sufficient. Oldskool install: unzip to somewhere, run oldskool239.umod to install, in-game use Mods to activate, then use Open New Single-Player Game. Be sure volumetric lighting is enabled (may default off, find under Advanced Options>Rendering>your renderer). Brightness of U1 maps is same as U1, not as bright as UT maps, diff. setting needed.

UNREAL ZERO NOTES

The main modification is larger numbers of enemies, made playable by reducing their health to relatively human levels. Carnage and challenge is increased. Headshots and direct flak-grenade shots are often rewarded with single-shot kills. Also, the attitude and conventions are more back-to-basics FPS. System requirements (mainly CPU) are also increased compared to what was acceptable for Unreal at the time of its release. My interest in Unreal is from a open-minded consideration of the kind of game I wanted to make, rather than setting out to make Unreal levels. This shows the powerful engine and complex enemy behaviour in a new light.

The typical humanoid enemy has the health of a lightly armored human (110-140), with obviously larger or tougher enemies higher but still less than the highest normally in Unreal (1500-1800). The concept is released to the public domain in exchange for reasonable credit. To make a level, refer to Cats 2 for creature specs. To make a level "blank", open Cats 2 in the Ed, create new level, and include at least one of all modified actors you anticipate using in the level before closing the Ed. It is not necessary to implement difficulty filters in the level except regarding easy, since the AI difficulty is exaggerated above medium.