You're Not Supposed To Be Here - Level Lore - "Zarathustra" (level 12/BRL12.map) news

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

Duke Nukem plunges into purgatory and experiences deconstruction on the prison planet of Zarathustra, land of the repressed where he finally shall meet his true match. Relive iconic Duke Nukem II moments, visit the Earth Museum, progress through organs, solve the solar system, confront your own design and don't die just yet in the toxic environment of absolute anti-Build that is Blast Radius' literal boss level and most sincere challenge.

"Zarathustra" may be Duke Nukem 3D: Blast Radius' penultimate, non-secret level, it in fact really is its centerpiece as in it is the peak of its honesty, the answer to its mysteries and the justification of its entire experience.

It is set on the planet Duke is drawn to after the events of "Postmortem", which showed his failure, and then of "Silent Scream", which showed his escape.

The planet is completely organic, with only vague, overgrown remains and traces of different civilizations to hint at its prolonged existence; it literally comprises its own organs with a heart, a brain and a digestive system Duke will need to traverse, and psychology, with different buried layers, synaptic connections and a clear split between accepted and repressed memories (respectively, the Earth Museum and the Duke Nukem II jail).

Home to more than just every possible alien race (some of which Duke will terminate for good), it also is to the concept of 'alien' altogether itself, and of its questioning, as the lore now precipitates possible connections with the Earth and its inhabitants onto the player that creepily complement the spacetime manipulation experiments which were revealed in "Postmortem", all the while shaking Duke Nukem's identity with constant references to the original Apogee platformers (see: Particularities, below), and various tests of veracity.

The illusions crumble after it is established, a journey around and then away from the entire world in, what the true source of the blast really has been all along, and the real stakes become apparent with Duke Nukem himself progressively dissolving as a character, avatar and franchise canon - which at first leaves the user open and vulnerable whilst in the most hostile environment possible, but then finally empowers them directly as they do in fact learn and conquer it from the actual first person perspective that isn't manufactured, but the direct product of their very own skills.

But the most real of all stakes also means the most honest of all challenges: the deconstruction process implies omnipresent anti-Build design with a level that isn't especially designed in favor of the player and, instead, is just fair as what it is: an actual challenge with no particular reason for pulling any of its punches.

Coming onto Zarathustra through a beam of green light, Duke's role immediately shifts from messiah to pariah, and keeping surviving all the while now qualifying as an alien himself is bound to hit different, with every familiar code and order reshuffled.

"Zarathustra" is named after both the prison planet from the 1994 survival simulation first-person game by Silmarils, "Robinson's Requiem", and the prophet also known as Zoroaster, on equal terms as to simultaneously echo the environment of repression-induced, toxic corruption, and Duke's presence in such settings; both physical and spiritual, geographical and symbolical.

Its theme is the responsibility of oneness.

History: "Zarathustra" was started on January 19th, 2022 and finished on February 21st, 2022; also chronologically, it was the twelfth map designed for Blast Radius as a project.

Because of how closely it flirts with intrinsic technical limitations of the Build engine, it had to be retouched in certain minor aspects around finalization and release time. In particular, all the "Duke Nukem I"-styled platforms used to cast shadows, which then all had to be deleted in order to make room for function and, in general, most every excessive instance of detail, as well as a few extra platforming moments had to be cut so that the map could just run. A few of the underwater segments also had to be simplified around the last minute.

"Zarathustra" also is the level which was readjusted the most during the couple of weeks of updates following the release of Duke Nukem 3D: Blast Radius, as it is by design fundamentally intended to be, despite its scale, a very specific struggle; the pacing of which calls for a select few crucial points and indicators to work as clear articulations in the progression and orchestration, but all the while leaving just the right room for suggestion to directly involve the player's original strategizing and cognitive initiative.

That is where the perceived facade of Duke Nukem as a projected character begins crumbling, and the player starts feeling personally vulnerable to the overwhelmingly hostile environment but also free, and potentially just as strong as their usual avatar as they learn how to evolve from passivity to activity, and from survival to life. This was the original concept, from the get-go.

Another literal determination from the start was how, as one more general nod to the inception of the Duke Nukem franchise back when it was supposed to be called "Heavy Metal", the atmosphere of the level should feel as heavy metal as it gets.

No secret places.

"Zarathustra" was designed to symbolize a certain type of spiritual limbo or purgatory so strong, in itself it might qualify as an intense boss fight in map form where the player progressively realizes how, at the end of the day, they have been their own antagonist all along - and yet can only progress by accepting and pushing through their very given design.

In a sense, the organic planet directly communicates with the player throughout the entirety of Duke's traversal of it, via its insistence on forcing extreme situations and sometimes tedious inputs onto them all the while keeping reacting to their progress by regularly projecting new events and tones onto the scenery - the intensity of which varies depending on Duke's latest positive move, until the planet succumbs to the temptation of accepting him as his match, and the universe decides to fight on even terms.

"Zarathustra" absolutely isn't for everyone and thus, it is no legend but an unsurprising fact that out of the five otherwise very involved, and relatively disconnected Blast Radius beta testers, every single one backed out of its challenge to a degree - or understood how this particular level by design shouldn't be merely tested, but either fully rejected or embraced as the singular experience it is.

That means the player of course can be tempted, and is free to quit the episode, considering it completed after the Earth as the typical Duke Nukem McGuffin explodes in level 10 "Postmortem" if they don't have any reason to keep going but a personal one, such as natural curiosity, adrenaline thirst or genuine interest in not denying themselves Blast Radius' true ending and point.

During its conception, the map temporarily was called "Payback" until around the time of recreating the "Duke Nukem II" intro sequence and prison level, which helped make the connection to "Robinson's Requiem" all the more tempting to officialize.

For a while, it also had a different sky texture, consisting in a yellow variant of the Los Angeles skyline as to suggest this newfound world being populated and lively, before the opposite direction settled instead (see: beta screenshot from Blast Radius W.I.P./Discussion thread on the Duke4.net forums).

The practical terrain design (mostly outdoors) with an abundance of slopes, cliffs, a central toxic pit/split, some underwater action, generally overwhelming scale and omnipresence of monsters hopes to echo the ethereal, dreamlike qualities of level 4 "Incapharnaum" with the tonal twist of being its "nightmare", negative counterpart.

Aesthetically, it directly references and incorporates elements from the original Duke Nukem platformers by Apogee Software, reassembled in the Build engine to match them in shape, color and purpose.

"Zarathustra" also was supposed to be where the action would terminate until rather late in Blast Radius development, when it was decided that Duke's showdown against the Cycloid Archangel - the representation of adversity and, as such, an unremovable part of the universe - for the most part would branch off and into an ultimate, thirteenth map: "Closure" in which, after reshuffling the concept of "Duke Nukem 3D", Blast Radius finally would go on to redefine the game itself.

Walkthrough:

(Exceptionally, due to excessive article and level length, the 'walkthrough' section of this page had to be split and receive its own dedicated ModDB page: the walkthrough for "Zarathustra" can be found here!)

Par time route: "Zarathustra" is the one and only level in Blast Radius where the par times actually were rather superficially tested (for now).

Instead of the usual standard for the par times of the other levels, which prohibits cheats and insists on a deathless (but not saveless) Come Get Some pistol start, at the time of this writing (v. 2.0.7), the registered ones for "Zarathustra" were estimated around God Mode test traversals, the level being too complex to tackle seriously speedrunning during finalization of the episode's development.

As a result, while they are based on viable traversals, there is a pinch of absurdity in them that parallels the ridiculous character of the level; the strats also were greatly improvised and never refined, resulting in times that one might find downright impossible to beat or, to the contrary, totally smash when tracing more or less appropriate routes.

If you can beat the registered times in "Zarathustra" on Come Get Some without cheats (saves/reloads tolerated if not unreasonably excessive) and record footage of the run, please feel free to share the corresponding YouTube link in the comments of this article and I officially will register your time(s) in the episode.

Good luck!

Particularities: (This segment of the article is illustrated with example screenshots from "Duke Nukem" (Apogee, 1991) and "Duke Nukem II" (Apogee, 1993) courtesy of Dosgamert and RUFUS!'s Video Game Graveyard on YouTube, juxtaposed with locations, objects and set pieces "Zarathustra" more or less clearly reinterprets or, sometimes, just subliminally references and suggests.)

In the context of Duke Nukem 3D: Blast Radius, "Zarathustra" is an important level in a variety of ways: it is one of the longest ones of the campaign to traverse (also because it forces a semblance a linearity while the other larger pieces, e.g. level 4 "Incapharnaum", didn't), but also was literally designed to be the strongest, in more ways than one there too.

It is home to 700+ enemies and while that might sound almost reasonable when compared to "Incapharnaum" and its 1400+, here almost all of them are deadly, and a sizable portion is mini- and full-sized boss variants.

The planet of Zarathustra itself is a boss to fight, and designed as such, being a living organism with its own digestive system (the lava tunnel and pits, starting from the one with the cog and then going down through the series of crushers), heart (the central pump Duke needs to descend down, then ascend back up), brain (the Octadeity). Duke's actions will physically harm it: the segment from the giant drill onwards, comprising the infiltration, then surgery of the Octadeity and then the need of a Hint Pedestal to establish a new connection back to the surface represents a lobotomy.

The planet also has its own psychology, with the "Duke Nukem II" prison representing past trauma and repressed memories (all the while strenghtening the "Robinson's Requiem" accolade) whereas the Earth Museum holds every positive that wasn't suppressed. Both areas are split by the insufferable purple lava river and the only ways across are either a long way around, some precise, painful platforming, purifying into lava to then navigate the digestive system, or connections that open up way late into the life of the level.

The progression is intended to be a non-stop bombardment of new events and sceneries, switching up the pacing and settings as to claim feeling like a whole episode in itself, again on more levels than just one. In terms of different, lengthy missions to accomplish, puzzles to solve and general things to do, it is supposed to singlehandedly feel at least as heavy as an entire base Duke Nukem 3D campaign, and Duke Nukem's mental state obviously is unclear at this point of the story. It could be argued that in such a surreal and unfit environment, his mere physical presence and continuation is a question. But was it a certainty, ever at all?

"Zarathustra" is the real core of, and justification for Blast Radius. After a lengthy, heavy progressive build-up of wannabe-familiar Earthly decoy and relatively grounded tropes, the Build engine suddenly flips and decides it's time to deconstruct. Which naturally affects everything it touches, starting with Duke Nukem as a personality, franchise character, and player avatar as the true quality of the first-person perspective and initiative becomes uncertain.

"Zarathustra" is the only level in Blast Radius with zero secret places.

On pure technical terms, it clearly pushes the Build engine to certain extremes, in terms of size, length and utilization of the available resources but also due to relying on obscure tricks the original Duke Nukem 3D never featured.

The giant, functional drill resorts to a precise, timed combo of unused Sector Effectors as to force a synchronicity in its sequencing that is very exceptionally possible with typical Build engine logic; the effect was discovered and taught by Max 'Oasiz' Ylitalo in the "Duke 3D Build Porn" thread of the Duke4.net forums (note to mappers: the listing of Effectors in the written tutorial actually is in part off; feel free to open "Zarathustra" in Mapster32 for the correct set-up). Watch the video.

The Octadeity boss is an inherent part of the level, including its tentacles, death state, and the inside of the brain is actual sector-over-sector where the position of the switch actually matches the one of the eye, on the outside of the body.

The Cycloid Archangel relies on a combo of 'maskwalls', various timed Effectors, and parallaxed sky tricks.

The N.U.K.U.M.s mostly make "Duke Nukem" (Apogee, 1991; also known as "Duke Nukum") PC speaker sounds that match the behaviors of Duke, the playable protagonist in that game.

The "Duke Nukem II" 'confusion'/tie-in and general end game already was foreshadowed in Blast Radius level 5: "High High High", with the outro screen appearing on one of the computers, in the command center of the avionics. Possibly, that isn't the only, nor the earliest instance of foreshadowing in the episode.

It is the level where the facade of the game starts crumbling, and the source of the blast becoming apparent.

Soundtrack: "Payback" by Slayer / "God Hates Us All" / American Recordings, 2001 (MIDI version)

Automap:

Map stats (as of v. 2.0.6): 2028/4096 sectors, 16383/16384 walls, 16055/16384 sprites.

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