What?
No, I am NOT done talking about this. It's my magnus opus.
First of all, some of the biggest complaints it's gotten is that there isn't enough combat. On the other hand, some people have said that the brief few-and-far-between fights were a good thing. Other's have said that it wasn't really memorable, that while it was all weird and nonsensical Paranoia doesn't stand out enough. The implications of this are startling; there are people out there who want my maps to be weirder.
Also, apparently a lot of people have been having trouble with the puzzles. The biggest offenders seem to be the lever that turns on the power for the first elevator, the breakable floorboards in the swamp and resisting the compulsion to shoot the medic (I named him Leon) near the end.
I really don't know how to go about that last one. I could make the solutions more obvious but that might displease some of the more puzzle-affluent players. As for the other problems; make sparse fighting scenes that stand out for being over-the-top awesome and not even messing around with normal architecture next time around. Surrealism is now the rule, not the exception.
What makes a good abstract map? This does:
- Exploration. The player cannot be punished for poking around a bit.
- Juxtaposition. Some of the best Surrealism came from putting familiar objects in strange places. Rene Magritte was really one of the best at this.
- Confusion of Perspective. Make the player question where they are; Up? Down? On a Train? Riding a Moose? M.C. Escher is one of the best references for this kind of thing.
- Trains. I have a feeling trains will be synonymous the the Paranoia series.
I can always tell that it'll be a huge mess when we make videos together. This one for example: Yes, these clips were very easy to make and took no time at all. How long did we spend making this video? At least three hours. You see, the evening started when I sent him a link to a video of Gary Busey. We both decided that it would be hilarious to remake that scene in Garry's Mod (First person to guess which movie it's from wins.). We planned the scene, made the server, and the got to work. However, we decided to review the original footage with the In-game Youtube Player Addon and that's when all our efforts crumbled around us. Gary's insanity must have reached out to us because in no time at all the entire map was engulfed in fire. We went around breaking every window in the level and then put mattresses in the hole. Why? To keep Gary Busey out of the house, that's why. Almost every NPC was dead by the time we started filming again.
And then we went back to breaking windows.
I regret nothing.
I almost forgot to mention, Paranoia was mentioned on the TVTropes page for Garry's Mod. So that's something to think about.
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3 comments:
After playing through Paranoia and it was very well done, I agree though, it's hard to make a mod, let alone a long map, with a somewhat memorable storyline.
The gameplay was decent, fits the style of the map, not too much combat but still leaves you wanting more. I think the puzzles were good, though the they weren't exactly original.
It was definitely worth the download though, I thoroughly enjoyed it, normally when I would consider making a single player mod/map I would lose inspiration and energy to continue. I congratulate your efforts :)
Thanks! That makes it all worth while.
I thought Paranoia was fucking fantastic. If there had been no combat, I would have loved it just the same. I played through it twice, each time trying to get as much exploring done as possible. You've set the bar pretty high, and I thank you for it.
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