This past year has been just great when it comes to at least one thing - and what a fundamental one: progress on the development of Blast Radius, a new episode for Duke Nukem 3D first revealed to be W.I.P. on the Duke4.net forums on April 15h, 2019.
Strong of just three levels 18 months after its inception, due to the various pandemic-related regulations and lockdowns, advancement on the project skyrocketed over the following 12 and, as of today, July 24th, 2021, Blast Radius comprises no less than ten fully playable maps, including some of the largest ever drawn for Duke Nukem 3D - all brimming with action, interactivity, secret places, references and events; a handful of them also designed, somehow, within a mere couple of weeks.
Effervescent activity which has only been consolidating the (very kind) attention now longtime received from other loyal Build engine enthusiasts and Duke Nukem 3D players on the Duke4.forums, who have in turn provided great encouragement in abundance - thank you.
The Badge, generously octroyed by Duke4.net poster
and fellow user mapper Mister Sinister,
now publicly worn with uttermost humility.
Time for a summer update, consisting in a selection of beta screenshots from the different levels, shared on the aforementioned message boards over time as their respective developments were ongoing. As such, most of them are months - if not years - old and thus may or may not be outdated already, or final. A lot of them also have the wrong visibility set (resulting in inaccurate levels of rendering fog), or were grabbed in-editor - thus explaining the occasional showing of stats, C9 and Effector sprites (normally invisible), etc. The intent here being conveying a better general representation of the episode to the ModDB users who do not necessarily frequent Duke4.net. Enjoy!
With the majority of the work out of the way and the current reaffirmation of time constraints in society, though, what has been quite the breakneck mapping frenzy is bound to slow down this coming second half of 2021. This is also a deliberate author's choice as to better retain perspective on the overall quality of the product, after so many new elements were recently introduced, more hindsight would be reasonable to spend on the bigger picture. Although, in no way does this affect the prediction of a 2022 release - one already envisioned as the worst case scenario.
Thank you for your interest in this crazy trip of a project. Be ready for brand new Duke Nukem 3D action and come get more, soon. Thank you for waiting!
- ck3D
Making creations, as vast and detailed, with the Build engine is a performance of creativity. Congratulations, it's great °0°
Merci Seb !
Well done!!
Thank you!
This is f'ing insane, my dude. Great work. Rivals the likes of Ion Fury. Looking forward to the finished product.
Thanks for your interest and kind words - Ion Fury comparison is a great compliment although no rivalry intended obviously! Build engine renaissance going on right now as a whole is pretty fantastic.
God Damn!! that looks so good, I'm looking forwards to this pack
Thank you. Only the final map and the secret map left to make!
Some of the biggest maps I've seen for Duke3D! Outstanding!
Imagine some poor bastard trying to get this running in 1996. The exploding 486 would give him permanent tinnitus.
Haha! Some of my older, released user maps have gotten similar comments before, regarding the evolution of tech, and how a 486 would probably melt whilst trying to process them. But those maps were a lot smaller - just cluttered with (sometimes unnecessary) detail. Here though, I'm especially focusing on allocating the player a lot of space and so, freedom of movement in every way possible, including verticality, even if slightly at the expense of micromanagement. In this game, empty spaces with the right texturing, shaping and shading can look just as good as very detailed rooms and most importantly, because Duke's movement is so quick and wild, they tend to play better.
Now, map size does affect performance just as much as detail - but here I'm satisfied with the happy medium I've found so far. Part of the intent is crafting an experience relying on all the strengths of the base game except cranked up to 11 (also taking into account the original gameplay style, and so not necessarily giving into the 'slaughterfest' genre), as if I were making my own little Duke Nukem 3D II nearly three decades later. Thank you for your interest in the project! Hope you get to experience the episode first hand when it drops eventually.
Also worth noting (on the tech front) that the original 3DR level designers had to cut back on a lot in 1996 already because of the framerate concerns at the time. As a result, it's pretty common to run into online discussions where long-time Duke 3D fans ponder all the what if's. Thus I find it kind of cool that in reality, the question of the limits of the Build engine was always some kind of fascination in one way or another.
Nice work.
Glad you like it, much appreciated!