These are my levels for use with Ambrosia’s game Avara. Many of them are experimental in nature, as they explore different ways to exploit the third dimension in level design and incorporate symmetry into levels. Some are also influenced by my own circumstance: as I'm 10,000km away from most players most of my games are laggy, even with only a couple of players, and very complex levels can be unplayable.
Despite this they are all designed to be playable, and hopefully among them you'll find something you like. I welcome feedback on any or all of the levels, especially constructive criticism which gives me ideas which can be incorporated into new levels.
Net Levels
The Wall
A level designed for two teams of yellow and green, ideally either two or four players (I think it would be very claustrophobic with six).
This is the third release of this map. The first one had red and green teams, but for some reason I've still not worked out yellow and green teams work better. In this release I've slightly lightened some of the walls so thay can be more easily seen, and have added a teleport to teleport out the winning team.
Walls
Walls is an adaption of ‘The Wall’, designed to overcome it’s main limitation, that it only works well for teams. As well as letting you choose any colour, not just yellow and green, I’ve further divided up the playing area, added more blocks in the process, and made it easier and harder to get goodies - easier as there are now five goodies, each one both a grenade and missile goody, harder as you need to jump on blocks to get to any of them. Again it’s probably best suited to four or less players because of the small playing area.
Pit Ball Terror
Another net level, this time for individual players or teams.
Small Desert Town
A larger than usual net level, best for larger groups of players. This and ‘The Tomb’ are meant to be plausible representations of a desert environment, with white-washed Medditeranian style houses.
Arena
A large open arena, simpler than most net levels. Perhaps best played by large groups of players.
Arena II
The first version of Arena didn’t play very well, at least not in any of the games I played, so I used it as a basis for another, more interesting, level. This level has more obstacles/features, inclucing ramps, blocks and walls, and more goodies which regenerate faster.
It also has eight pills. Shoot a pill a few times to subdue it, then quickly pick it up (before it recovers) and after a few seconds it changes colour and is on your side, and will shoot other players/teams but not you/your team. The pills start in locations where they can't see very much, you can move them elsewhere once you've subdued them, though you move a lot more slowly while carrying a pill.
Dance Floor
Net level, part inspired by those tacky disco dance floors made of raised coloured blocks which flash in time with the music, part an another experiment in how to generate a 3D environment.. Good for quick games between few players.
Platforms
An experimental three dimensional net level, where the main direction of travel is down. Note the guards at ground level are indestructable and are there to deter you from loitering at ground level. Also note the platforms are deliberately too widely spaced to jump: the only way up is by transporter.
Solo Missions
Maze No. 1
A solo mission. The objective is to reach yellow teleporter and exit. If you look up and a bit to the left from your starting position you can see the teleporter. There are no switches, elevators or trampolines. The only thing that moves in the level is you, and the entire maze is visible.
Maze No. 2
Another solo mission. The objective is to reach yellow teleporter and exit, which this time is directly above your sarting position, about 30 metres up. There are no switches, elevators or trampolines. The only thing that moves in the level is you, and the entire maze is visible.
The above two levels are graphically fairly complex. I’ve noticed a slight slowdown on my PPC 604/132 Mac, at 832 x 624, when standing where I can see most or all of the platforms, and you may fare worse on a slower machine. One tip for these maze levels: use a light HECTOR without any ammo, as you'll then be lighter and will find the jumps easier.
Maze No. 3
A more traditional maze, easier than the first two mazes. Again find the teleporter (which this time is adacent to the entran, behind a wall) and exit. It may see a very trivial maze but it has a particular construction which made it interesting, at least for me.
Maze No. 4
A different approach to 3D mazes. The maze is organised as a compact 5 x 5 x 5 cube, the exit is on the roof.
The Tomb
Belligerent squatters have occupied an ancient, sacred tomb. Your task is to evict them. You have to kill all UFOs, guards and parasites before you will be teleported out. The original plot was something like “For 10,000 years people have wondered how a primative race carved the Tomb of Av'ra, using only bronze tools to carve 100 ton stone blocks and position them exactly in place. Now they wonder no more, as the builders have returned, to use the tomb as their base“, but I thought that overlong for a level description.
It’s a more traditional solo level, hopefully not too easy. It started as a Pyramid, but after doing just one level it was obvious that Avara wasn't going to cope with what I had in mind, so I stopped there. Even so it's geometrically fairly intricate, and taxes Avara’s rendering capablities. I’ve added some optimisations to the interior of the tomb to speed rendering, and switching to ‘Short Range View’ also helps a lot when you're outside. As I’ve only tested it on my 640/132 PPC I’m not sure how well it will work on slower Macs. I suspect it will not run very well on ’040 Macs.
•∞o∞•
1.0 - first release of ‘The Wall’
1.1 - Added ‘Maze No. 1’, improvements to ‘The Wall’
1.2 - Added ‘Maze No. 2’, more improvements to ‘The Wall’
1.3 - Added ‘Pit Ball Terror’
1.4 - Added ‘A Small Desert Town’
1.5 - Added ‘The Tomb’, changed resource IDs of PICTs to conform with Ambrosia’s docs.
1.6 - Added ‘Maze No. 3’, ‘Arena’ and ‘Dance Floor’
1.7 - Added ‘Maze No. 4’, ‘Walls’, ‘Arena II’ and ‘Platforms’; re-arranged the levels so net levels come first and related levels are grouped together (previously they had been organised in order of creation); added recenter teleporters to most net levels (as most were missing them).
I welcome any feedback, and can be reached at
e-mail:johnb@hk.super.net
Web:<http://www.hk.super.net/~johnb>
Latest version of these levels: <http://www.hk.super.net/~johnb/avara.html>
