Custom Duke Nukem 3D Maps

[St_Eddie]

I thought that I'd share a couple of the maps that I made using the Duke Nukem 3D build engine.  These were made back in 1997, when I was 15 years old.

Here's a couple of playthrough videos...

Shopping mall - I tried to incorporate all of the features of the build engine into this map.  So there's a transforming environment, a swimming pool, security cameras, mirrors and more.  There's also an awful lot of strippers (again, I was 15 when I made this).

FUN FACT: The use of mirrors in Build required the user to create an exact mirror image copy of the room that's being mirrored, directly adjacent to it.  In essence, the 'mirror' is actually a pane of transparent glass with the mirrored room behind it and a tag projects a mirrored image of Duke Nukem himself onto the glass.  This kind of illusion was common place within the Build engine.  For example, when you go underwater, you're actually teleported to a separate area of the map.

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A recreation of the cabin from The Evil Dead and Evil Dead II - I was a huge fan of The Evil Dead as a kid and I tried to recreate the cabin as best I could.  The positioning of the workshed is wrong.  I'm not sure why I screwed up there.  15 year old me was none too bright, I guess.

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You can also download the maps, should you want to play them yourself...

Shopping mall.

Evil Dead cabin.

[madhair60]

Duke 3D might be my favourite game ever. Proof

[St_Eddie]

Duke 3D might be my favourite game ever. Proof

Great video!  From the games mentioned in your video, I own Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition, Duke it out in D.C. and Duke!Zone II.

However, I think that we can all agree that Duke Nukem 3D for the Game.com is the best version available.  I came this close to asking for a Game.com for my Birthday present, as a kid.  Bullet well and truly dodged there.

[Consignia]

I came this close to asking for a Game.com for my Birthday present, as a kid.  Bullet well and truly dodged there.

What? Duke 3D, Mortal Kombat Trilogy, Sonic Jam and Resident Evil 2 all on handheld? Best console ever, mate.

[St_Eddie]

What? Duke 3D, Mortal Kombat Trilogy, Sonic Jam and Resident Evil 2 all on handheld? Best console ever, mate.

Preciously why I was so enamoured by the Game.com when I came across it in the Argos catalogue.  There were no screenshots and I had no means to access the Internet back then, to find out any further information.  At my behest, my Mum asked the Argos employee if there would be any further games released for it and he replied "it depends how well it sells" (in retrospect; duh!), so I decided it best to hold off on acquiring the system.  It was only many years later that I decided to find out what I had missed out on and looked up some footage on YouTube.  I wasn't quite prepared for the sights and sounds which greeted me upon that day.

[madhair60]

Great video!  From the games mentioned in your video, I own Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition, Duke it out in D.C. and Duke!Zone II.

However, I think that we can all agree that Duke Nukem 3D for the Game.com is the best version available.  I came this close to asking for a Game.com for my Birthday present, as a kid.  Bullet well and truly dodged there.

Thanks. I'm obsessed with Duke in general, I think it's a fascinating series. I played a lot of 3D when I made that vid and found even more secrets I'd never previously discovered.

I'll throw your levels into jDuke ASAP

[St_Eddie]

Here's a section of my shopping mall map within the build engine, which I used to create the map.  I thought that it might be of interest to those who would care to know how such things are made...

I'll throw your levels into jDuke ASAP

Great!  I'll be curious to hear what you think of the shopping mall level.

[popcorn]

I love this analysis of Duke Forever vs Duke 3D: http://tickmancer-old-blog.tumblr.com/post/33867189031/smgs-duke-nukem-forever-analysis-still-owns

[St_Eddie]

I love this analysis of Duke Forever vs Duke 3D: http://tickmancer-old-blog.tumblr.com/post/33867189031/smgs-duke-nukem-forever-analysis-still-owns

It's interesting but I'm not sure that I agree with any of it.

[madhair60]

Tried Shopping Mall - it was good. It was pretty classic Duke. I got to the end having missed all four secrets, so I'll be going back for those. I found the environment more convincing until the last large area which felt more extraneous, and I managed to die by leaping off the "diving platform" into the swimming pool, somehow. Good fun though. I'll try the cabin later.

Oh, I did find the armour high up in the cinema lobby, but it wasn't counted as a secret.

[St_Eddie]

Tried Shopping Mall - it was good. It was pretty classic Duke. I got to the end having missed all four secrets, so I'll be going back for those. I found the environment more convincing until the last large area which felt more extraneous, and I managed to die by leaping off the "diving platform" into the swimming pool, somehow. Good fun though.

I'm glad that you enjoyed it.  I completely agree that the final area is extraneous.  I certainly wouldn't design it that way, were I making it today.  As for dying via the diving platform; I can't possibly imagine what happened there, unless you were low on health and touched one of the sharks upon making contact with the water.  Otherwise, it must be a glitch within the engine itself.  I've never had it happen to me, when testing it (at least not that I can remember, as it was 20 years ago).

I'll try the cabin later.

Don't expect much, as it's just a quick and dirty recreation of the cabin from The Evil Dead.  There's no enemies or a level exit or anything.

Oh, I did find the armour high up in the cinema lobby, but it wasn't counted as a secret.

Yes, I really should have tagged that as a secret.  I'm not sure why I didn't.  Good luck finding the 4 secret areas that I did tag!  If you have no luck, then you can always watch my playthrough video to see where they are.  I'll give you a hint, though; 3 of them are behind secret door ways, that look like regular walls.  As for the last secret, let's just say that the jetpack pickup is there for a reason.

[New Jack]

On the Duke 4 forums there's a reliable thread about a working build of 2001 DNF being out there, but Gearbox are twats

I used to run Planet Duke for Gamespy which was a nice way to earn money at 17. I got some leaked internal screenshot that looked ace, they're in that thread now.

Duke 3D is magnificent and it's a shame it never got the sequel it deserved.

I reckon they should have just finished the 1998 Quake 2 engine version to bump up their finances and then done the Unreal version, rather than endlessly finesse and be too small to catchup, especially in the era of Half Life.

Duke 3D had some amazing user maps. Used to be ICQ mates with a dude called Bob Averill. He was fucking great, found loads of technical tricks.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Do shopping malls have swimming pools? I live in the provinces, so ours don't.

[St_Eddie]

Do shopping malls have swimming pools? I live in the provinces, so ours don't.

Well, there was an ice rink in the Monroeville shopping mall, which was used to film George A Romero's Dawn of the Dead, so I shouldn't wonder if there's a swimming pool in a shopping mall, somewhere.  It was really just an excuse for me to make use of another feature of Build, of course.  These days, I would have been more creative and had a section of the mall blocked off with debris, requiring the player to enter a manhole and swim through shit, to emerge above ground on the over side of the debris.

[New Jack]

Good BUILD skills = Rooms over rooms

[St_Eddie]

Good BUILD skills = Rooms over rooms

Absolutely.  As you are clearly aware, the build engine isn't capable of supporting rooms built on top of other rooms and in order to achieve such a thing, one had to resort to tricky to create the illusion of multi-storeys.  I'm pleased to say that my map features such trickery.

[New Jack]

Good lad. That's the true mark of BUILD skill. Used to review loads of maps.

Glad to see me ol mate Mikko Sandt still has his website, good resource for maps:

https://msdn.duke4.net/

[Consignia]

This discussion triggered me to go and look the room over room stuff. It's quite an interesting topic (albeit only if your are interested in how these things work under the hood). I there's even some stuff on doing RoR in Doom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7ASkM92vis which is neat, since I thought it wasn't at all possible. Although I'm not 100% sure it's acheivable in the original version.

[madhair60]

I'd love to make DooM/Duke maps but don't even know where to begin. Even the easy stuff seems hard

[St_Eddie]

I'd love to make DooM/Duke maps but don't even know where to begin. Even the easy stuff seems hard

I don't know about Doom but Build, the Duke Nukem 3D engine (also used in other games, such as Blood, Shadow Warrior and Redneck Rampage) is actually very user friendly.  I first started building maps with it because PC Gamer had a tutorial in one of their issues, back in the day.  I was able to make fairly complex maps simply through that tutorial and experimentation (this was pre-Internet).  There's now an updated version of Build, called JFDuke3D.  I'm going to give it a go myself.  I recommend trying it out for yourself.  It'll be easier than ever, now that there's online tutorials.