You're Not Supposed To Be Here - Level Lore - "Sunset Suicide" (level 1/BRL1.map) news

Download Duke Nukem 3D: Blast Radius (last update: 03/04/2024; v. 5.0.2)

Welcome to the possible start of an improbable series of articles recounting and responding to questions pertaining to the secrets, lore, references and mechanics of Duke Nukem 3D: Blast Radius levels. More installments most likely will be dropping over time on an irregular, unpredictable basis but for this one, let's take a deep, Rigelatin aircraft shoot out-induced plunge into the rooftop pool of "Sunset Suicide", the first map in the episode and thus where Duke's blast of a journey begins.

First and foremost, due to this level's title I feel obliged to preface this with the quick, but important mention that whilst conceptually tormented in a way that just so happens to fit Duke Nukem dystopian settings as well as the occasional alliteration, suicide really isn't cool. I unexpectedly lost my uncle, one of the people who had gotten me into Duke Nukem 3D (over twenty years ago) and the first person I ever made my earliest user maps for, to suicide about halfway through Blast Radius development (this project is dedicated to him - see manual). Regardless of an individual's current condition, I believe in their intrinsic power to change and shape their surroundings for the better, if just for the sole mathematical reason that as long as one keeps breathing then that power just positively exists. Anyone's existence is too precious a gift to surrender to the circumstantial. But here I am done recognizing I just couldn't resist the temptation of more narrative thread to better excuse the choice of a Suicidal Tendencies MIDI track for this level (or could there be other justifications for that title?), but also sincerely wishing every reader the best.

Now, let's rock.

History: "Sunset Suicide" was, chronologically, the fourth map designed for Blast Radius (respectively after level 3 "Big Apple Smoke Toke", then level 7 "Lights, Camera, Revolution", then level 9 "Nakano Nightmare") and was built Nov. 6th - Nov. 29th 2020.

By that point already, enough levels had been built for a certain direction to have emerged: all Blast Radius maps would take place in (more or less loose) reinterpretations of real-world places, all the while paying homage to the most iconic Build engine features (such as sector-over-sector) and to certain stylistic elements from the base Duke Nukem 3D map layouts by Allen H. Blum III and Levelord (interconnected spaces forming 'playgrounds' which are just as suitable for both single and multiplayer, generally interactive settings) - but on a LameDuke-inspired macro scale.

Around the same time period, I was telling MSDN the aim of my little experiment would be to try 'capturing that original Duke 3D feel - and then spamming the Expander on it'.

At this point, a lot of the fun and challenge already had become trying to turn existing physical locations into Duke 3D/Build playable areas; not by micromanaging fidelity in cosmetic detail, but instead by choosing to embrace the game and engine's abstract strengths and essentially translate those landmarks into their language.

I also already knew I wanted the whole episode to play with the user's expectations a lot - and so before thinking about leading them anywhere intense already, an introductory basic, normal-scale Los Angeles map with heavy nods to Duke 3D's E1L1 "Hollywood Holocaust" would be in order.

The idea was to trick the player into feeling in control in relatively classic settings for a while, and lead them by the nose with cliché patterns before suddenly surprising them with new elements just around the end of the level (the Scorpion Tanks) - and then shocking them once more via a brutal glimpse into the real deal, scale of action-wise, as soon as upon level 2 start.

Eventually came the time to actually decide on a specific location in order to start working on the level. Sunset Boulevard of course seemed fitting enough by itself given the direction and thematics, and I had been thinking about recreating the iconic Sunset Car Wash for a long time (original architecture by Robert Barnett; more info on the Los Angeles Conservancy website here).

It is only after that was built that I realized how no less than the D.G.A. building just happened to exist across the street - but as soon as I did, the general theme was finally fixated for good, as the possibility for nods to E1L1 suddenly skyrocketed.

Parking lot transition both in concept and layout was planned from the start as one more subtle reference to a scrapped/beta "Hollywood Holocaust" area, but also as a logical complement to the car wash theme; the real-life D.G.A. underground parking lot entrance just so happened to exist exactly where I would have needed it to be, too.

After such a while spent fighting Assault Trooper variants (and turrets if playing on Come Get Some and above - idea and placement by beta tester The Watchtower), the introduction of the first Pig Cops needed to be something. In fact, it appears that their introduction in the base game, through the exploding wall at the very end of "Hollywood Holocaust", already was a major point of focus at the time for the original Duke 3D developers, as evidenced by the notes one can clearly observe on the official E1L1 design documents.

"Sunset Suicide" recycles that formula, making for one more tribute to the historic base material, paradoxically enhanced relief upon finally hearing the Pig Cops' enraged grunts, and more deceptive reassurance with the familiar before pushing into the unfamiliar (a motif Blast Radius generally likes to use a lot) as the scrapped Duke 3D beta police siren progressively enters the sonic picture, announcing the danger of the next imminent moments.

I also really wanted to incorporate the original Amoeba Music store location into what was bound to be the only Los Angeles level in the set; in reality, it used to be a few blocks down, but as Build engine logic would allow I could just 'move' it closer.

Now it is visible as soon as the starting area, already hinting at Duke's end goal, complete with the CNN building in the background; and as bonus space to just search, it made for the perfect opportunity to safely, but strongly teach the least rushed of players how Blast Radius logic would reward exploration and, sometimes, having an eye for detail, usually with secret places aplenty (this last block singlehandedly concealing half the level's secrets, including a full chaingun and the map's second jetpack, right in time for the exit).

Another real-world spot that does exist, but had to be moved for gameplay flow purposes is the Rite Aid phamarcy that really is located further down and on the complete opposite end of the block.

In the real neighborhood, the corresponding space currently is occupied by a coffee store chain - which would have been redundant with the one in level 7 "Lights, Camera, Revolution" - but visiting the area in Google Maps (direct link above) can be interesting, as it happens to have been changing a lot throughout the recent years.

Some of the 'skybox' elements represent real-life constructions too; Château Marmont now doubles up as an Eagles reference, and LameDuke's Capitol Records tower makes its due comeback, all positioned according to their real arrangement around this block of Los Angeles. The realty offices Duke traverses in the map also correspond to an existing firm.

And of course there are more instances of social commentary and pseudo-jokes, such as the spoof fast food place 'Duke In The Box' actually concealing a Holoduke inside a crate, or the D.G.A. burning down entire collections of undesirable, most likely independent film work on their parking lot.

Walkthrough:

Duke's ride gets shot down, which equates yours as you crash land into the rooftop swimming pool atop of a residential building on Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles. Surface, but maybe not prior to destroying the breakable vent in front of you and fetching the portable medkit. Defend yourself once on land if needed with the help of the pistol and magazines lying around. Now Duke has three ways down the building. Exploring the ventilation shaft will reward him with armor and a sniper spot, but also threaten him with higher fall damage. Shooting the red canisters, on the other hand, will trigger an explosion strong enough to collapse part of the fencing around the rooftop, and also blast a hole into the next building.

The apartment you can get into conceals your first steroids - get used to them, seriously.

From that point on Duke can either leap out of that window and try to safely climb down the facade with the assistance of the lights and A.C. units, or just jump down at any point for some light fall damage, easily recovered by the health packs and multiple secret Atomic Healths in the general vicinity.

After you've ripped all the Trooper variants on the streets a new one, it is now time to face the level and explore up the block.

Before the intersection, to your right is the back of the D.G.A building, currently home to film-fueled dumpster fires and used as an impromptu parking lot (despite the immediate proximity of the legitimate, dedicated D.G.A. parking lot - you'll unlock it later with the red key - this is L.A.): explore to fetch more pistol ammo, health, new armor but also pipebombs.

More exploration in and around the trash cans (of all types), but also vertically should easily provide with a secret RPG Duke can instantly choose to use to defuse a flying pack of Troopers ahead of time, near the burning, collapsed building, but also the aforementioned secret Atomic Healths.

Keeping going up the block instead (or after) and in a straight line will have Duke cross a well-guarded intersection and then a car wash spot, but ultimately reward him with the possible rampaging of an apartment full of secrets (including an underground pathway to infiltrate the car wash's Detail Center, containing the freezethrower) which also conceals a non-secret, non-arguably crucial shotgun.

Now back out of the apartment and looking back to the start of the level, on Duke's left should be a pharmacy he always could enter any time (or throw pipebombs through the blocked windows of, in order to agitate the contained Troopers). This entire building is home to many secret places, including a second portable medkit and the map's first jetpack which, if found, allows Duke to skip everything up ahead by just flying to the end.

Upstairs is where you will find the blue key which, after some gunfire fanfare, unlocks the entrance of the D.G.A. building.

D.G.A. building traversal will take Duke through the prizes room on ground floor, then the projection room on the third floor; flipping the switch on the projector will not just start playing the movie, but also unveil space around the back of the screen that contains an Atomic Health, and a red grate Duke should smash in order to get inside the ventilation shaft.

Now inside offices on the second floor, Duke needs to restore the power in order to unlock progress. From that spot and moment, he has three ways out: jumping out of the window will take him back outside the main entrance and blue key door, crushing the grate and jumping down the hole in the ground will drop him back to ground floor, and one door - next to a security view screen - will take him to a way of keeping ascending the building and reaching the switch that he needs.

Beware the tripmine trap, and the unlocked door will lead Duke to the red key (but not before he has exploded a few walls), which he can then use to infiltrate the D.G.A. parking lot (near level start).

Exploring the place results in the first Pig Cops making their appearance, by blasting through a wall one can now climb and leave through, reaching an entirely new block.

Nuke Button to exit the level is in front of the Greyhound bus, but fighting the Scorpion Tanks and exploring the entire block will reveal multiple loopbacks to the previously visited block, as well as multiple secrets.

Par time route: Instantly leap out of the pool whilst blasting the red canisters in front of you, dip inside apartment, fetch and instantly ingest steroids. Leap out of the window, run up the block, use the speed boost from the steroids to leap off the banked section of the car wash building, over the fenced driveway, and into the parking lot. Rush to the pick-up truck, grab the box of pipebombs, pivot 90 degrees towards the easternmost pharmacy entrance. Head inside, shoot the switch ahead of you to activate the elevator while snagging the box of steroids just right to the entrance, then go and ride said elevator up. Immediately use a pipebomb against the cracked wall, jump down to the secret jetpack ledge, fetch the jetpack, then hop down again to ground level, ingest more steroids, and leave through the westernmost hole. Race to the back alley north of the boulevard (on foot for faster movement), then activate jetpack with the right timing to just about hover over the giant platform obstacle. As soon as possible, get back down onto firm land to regain speed, and sprint to Nukebutton.

DNSKILL5's corner ("Damn I'm Good" difficulty deathless traversal):

Check out DNSKILL5's "Damn I'm Good" skills on YouTube!

Particularities: "Sunset Suicide" was conceived out of the necessity for a seemingly accessible, deceptively comforting, vanilla Duke 3D-ish introductory romp and as such is rooted in relatively traditional design and a degree of restraint. However, in an exotic attempt to emphasize on the sector-over-sector capabilities of the Build engine very much in the vein the original "Hollywood Holocaust" did, albeit in the opposite way, it's southernmost segment has something a bit crazy going on.

Remember: the cinema in "Hollywood Holocaust" has a projector room on the upper floor which overlaps the hallway down below; now, technically, both spaces shouldn't be able to render properly if simultaneously called by the game to draw inside one same space, resulting in the notorious Hall Of Mirrors visual noise instead - except this is being avoided by clever sector cutting work, the geometry of which ensures none of the overlapping, corresponding fragments ever really are visible at the same time. This results in the player thinking they are able to peep into two floors at once from down there in the cinema room, when in reality their surroundings are articulated around meticulous occlusion methods which only allow them to perceive slices, resulting in a glitch-free experience.

Now, "Sunset Suicide" has a similar set-up except instead of allowing Duke to see and reach inside of spaces, it allows him to see and reach outside of spaces. Admittedly it isn't as direct as most 'raw' Build sector-over-sector tricks seeing as it involves a silent teleporter (that is for the 'reaching' part) and so, not the most exemplary pose in the book; but it probably has its own merits as proof of concept if anything.

This exact set-up (and jump down) involving the window out of the office, and the building facade here shouldn't really be possible in base Duke Nukem 3D, because of the combination of multiple structural overhangs and also due to the absence of solid, 'white' walls for the mapper to possibly anchor funny business onto.

My 'solution' - if one may call last resort bubble gum a solution - ended up being forming a duplicate layer of that entire plaza which I then superimposed - sector-over-sector style - over the actual physical space outside, to only ever use as a view out of the window. A strong resolution which ended up surviving for barely a few days since I promptly realized how unblocking said view and granting player free access to the space - with the ability to jump down and transition into the correct layer of the plaza via a silent teleporter to boot - potentially might look a tad off yes, but otherwise really added a dimension (and openness) to the offices.

Of course since we're talking Build engine, this experiment in technique ended up introducing new issues; more or less prominently in different versions of EDuke32 but still relatively consistently nonetheless, it had become possible to air clip into the wrong layer of the map by just hugging the wrong wall, or even just moving around at extreme speeds, which was extremely gameplay breaking. I hadn't ran out of bubble gum yet however, and my solution eventually was to add one-way teleporters (and the corresponding pixel perfect placed receiver for each) to most every sector of and around the plaza(s). Which actually turned out to solve things rather efficiently; from that point onwards, any time Duke would slip into the parallel universe, that would only be for one barely perceptible frame before he would automatically snap back into the intended reality.

The entire system actually is still in place and even possible to break a little (for instance by flying), although I honestly can't imagine any possible use in purposely doing so but experimentation (I feel like going for this 'trick' would only complicate a speed run). Also, once you've jumped out of the window, it's impossible to get back up the same way (e.g.. by using the jetpack), as now that could have looked really ugly and broken things - therefore Duke has to use a legitimate entrance again. So, think of that possible way out of the room as one (expensive!) accessible bonus.

Soundtrack: "Scream Out" by Suicidal Tendencies / "Freedumb" / Suicidal Records, 1999 (MIDI version)

I wanted every Blast Radius .mid to have some type of connection with their levels' respective themes, preferably their corresponding regions and local cultures on real-life Earth but not limited to that in case findings would run dry, which they in fact did for a couple of maps, finding the perfect match to which occasionally was challenging. "Sunset Suicide" wasn't one of those, however; due to the L.A. theme, level name and general attitude, S.T. was the only right match possible and thus easy to decide on.

Fun fact: besides Sunset Boulevard, the only other option I ever once considered for a possible Blast Radius opening would have been Venice Beach.

According to streamer Geomancien Live, the MIDI may be reminiscent of the music in the racing game "Road Trip Adventure" (Takara, 2002) which, given the events of Blast Radius, actually sounds like that only makes complete sense.

Automap:

Map stats (as of v. 1.0.8): 1866/4096 sectors, 13150/16384 walls, 4777/16384 sprites.

Download Duke Nukem 3D: Blast Radius (last update: 03/04/2024; v. 5.0.2)