[227][released] Dark Earth

[yrex .]

Title: Dark Earth
Platform: 227k recommended (227i may work with some glitches)
Authors: Yrex & ISV Clan

Screenshots:





Description:
A large mappack loosely inspired by the pre-reboot (1995 to early 1997) concepts of Unreal. It provides a mix of combat, platforming and puzzles. It's based on some recovered content (we didn't have much of that, esp. maps), reconstructions based on screenshots, videos and concept documents, and lots of original content.

Download (mirror)

[Leo T_C_K]

Just trying this for the first time now.. wow you guys have preserved the eyes? Even though that was meant to be the fireball lightsource without that sprite visible, but yea...is the valley of attila the jazz3d canyon map? lol

also flying horses YAY

[Gamesharder]

is the valley of attila the jazz3d canyon map? lol

Indeed! A little backstory:
Back in 2019, makemeunreal was messing with stuff from Jazz3D, converting this and that over 227, and he showed me this canyon.
I immediately saw potential in it, so I re-textured it with the 95 textures, and voilà. The idea of the starting area for the 2nd level was done... or so we thought.
This canyon had so many problems with (and still has), it caused bugs & glitches with the editor I have never even seen before lmao
We tried every possible way to figure out a way to make it work, it caused a real headache for even Yrex, too.

[Leo T_C_K]

Yea well a lot of those maps got made with that terrain editor and stuff, started with Circle...some of the historic unreal versions were better equiped to deal with it than others.

[Kewwsek]

I loved this whole thing all the way through, it was absolutely worth the wait

Amazing job guys


One of a few things I am curious on though


Is the sky city gateway level based on the lost beta map Amythest?

[Gamesharder]

I loved this whole thing all the way through, it was absolutely worth the wait

Amazing job guys


One of a few things I am curious on though


Is the sky city gateway level based on the lost beta map Amythest?

Thank you for playing! Glad you enjoyed it!

Sky Gates might have been partially inspired by Amethyst, but it's a combination of official screenshots, reused contents of ours and new ideas.

[Kewwsek]

Ah now I see

Yeah I had thought it was like mix of new ideas and probably old screenshots but it had me wondering whether it was based on amythest since to It was similar to that map's own screenshots I remember seeing on the unreal wiki, same case I thought with starship one being like a mix of ideas from maps alfa62 and HAL

[Leo T_C_K]

Ah now I see

Yeah I had thought it was like mix of new ideas and probably old screenshots but it had me wondering whether it was based on amythest since to It was similar to that map's own screenshots I remember seeing on the unreal wiki, same case I thought with starship one being like a mix of ideas from maps alfa62 and HAL

There were more cut maps than Amethyst and this project is aimed towards the older maps than Amethyst, to the times of the status bar, amethyst is past those. So its indeed stuff like old skycity and old skytown and not yet amethyst. Most of those old maps were created by Eric anyways. The modern skytown was new take on the theme by Jeremy War.

[Leo T_C_K]

What did you guys do with the deathmatch map to force dark earth classes on it? What actor is doing it there?

[Kewwsek]

Ah now I see

Yeah I had thought it was like mix of new ideas and probably old screenshots but it had me wondering whether it was based on amythest since to It was similar to that map's own screenshots I remember seeing on the unreal wiki, same case I thought with starship one being like a mix of ideas from maps alfa62 and HAL

There were more cut maps than Amethyst and this project is aimed towards the older maps than Amethyst, to the times of the status bar, amethyst is past those. So its indeed stuff like old skycity and old skytown and not yet amethyst. Most of those old maps were created by Eric anyways. The modern skytown was new take on the theme by Jeremy War.

Ah now I understand, I thought Amythest was like made around the same time as the sky city stuff or atleast the skytown stuff my bad there

[Gamesharder]

What did you guys do with the deathmatch map to force dark earth classes on it? What actor is doing it there?

That would be the U96Game.U96LevelInfo actor.

[Leo T_C_K]

Alright. We did something similar for the earlier ASP version but I found it too invasive, so it was scrapped for the later demo. Because it always replaced the hud with the blue ones and conflicted with custom gametypes.

[Leo T_C_K]

Anyways I have to be honest about something, the valley of atilla map is great and is a great remake of many of the 95 maps, however some of the "littleman" spawning does bother me a little. As in sometimes there's too much of it and i would have prefered the eyes be replaced with arcs or something at least, but whatever lol...if it was intended to be goofy like this then I have no objection. I just would have done awy with it because the eyes were temporary and in later versions they were just without the sprite display. The "fireball" class. As seen even on the first 1996 trailer.