[WIP] IMD Massive District: a full-size map project

[trubetz]

Hello everybody

I decided to post some pictures of a big map I am working on in collaboration with Valps and DustedandBlue. The project was started off at the end of April, and right now we are 1/3rd to halfway through. The name of the map is IMD, which expands recursively as IMD Massive District. Enjoy the views!

1. The save spot and the central railway station

I thought I could make the trains in the map more useful than just a means to look for tokens and KFs, but five months down it's more or less clear this isn't working out.

2. A park in the Russian area by DustedandBlue

We're having several gangs come back in IMD; here is a piece of the Russian neighborhood, which is going to be slightly more diverse than in Industrial but probably just as shabby.

3. The Tree of Life

The Krishna will be there too; their area will be much greener this time. This structure (which hopefully at least someone recognizes as a tree) was my attempt at unconventional use of bil.sty tiles; as you might guess, this is where mission phones will be too.

4. Posh buildings by Valps


When it comes to nuanced architecture, Valps is definitely the best of us three; here is a rich neighborhood in the farthest corner from Russians. This has the most architectural details and clever use of shadow filters. The amount of passages and walkways is crazy too.

I am not posting the map yet, because at this point we'd rather bring the map to a full alpha version before. However, I hope to post more updates once a month until we're finished. Keep in touch, comrades!

[_L1pE_]

Looking rather nice, incl. the extra images in the album, very varied architecture. Wish you best of luck with the project

The big tree is an interesting unusual idea, but it looks more like it's just big bushes around.

I recommend not having diagonal blocks where the player can go over them, a diagonal wall with a solid top will make you able to stand on the midair parts, and corner cuts will act like full solid blocks.

Got any script related plans you can share?

[trubetz]

Thanks man! We'll do our best!

The big tree is kind of a fiasco, as it apparently looks nothing like a tree to people. I'm working on different parts of the map now, so I'll tend to it later. I'll have to see if I keep it at all (it's still a playable piece of the layout after all, just looking weird).

Thanks for the heads up about the diagonal block tops! I was sure that if you can bump into a diagonal wall, you can fall off it as well. Turned out not to be the case; big disappointment, as some stuff will get blockier. I'll have to put more fences along the shoreline too.

As for the script plans, these are very ambitious; the ultimate goal is to make a full-blown GTA 2 district with three gangs, 22 missions, 20 KFs and 50 tokens. This might prove too big, so we intend to implement it in thirds. The first release will probably have the scale of Capital City, which had 2 green, 1 yellow and 1 red job per gang, 10 Kill Frenzies and 5 or 10 tokens. I've come up with a really good KF with grenades by the way. After that, we'll see how the coding goes and if we have the strength to go all the way to 22+20+50.

Aside from the standard stuff, I have a plan to implement Wang Cars. They'll probably be not as tricky to reach, but I'll have the player drive them to the garage with some challenges (timed race, carkour and police chase are some ideas).

[_L1pE_]

For the big tree you could try having the canopy be above most of the "branches" and "trunks", it'd affect visibility but might be more tree-like and it'd make it less clear the body is just dirt textures, though they'd still make dirt footstep sounds. You could also try using tree canopy textures together with less "regular" shapes for the canopy geometry, with varying slope types and such.

I wasn't sure what you meant about the diagonal walls, but I tested it and it turns out if you walk off or jump from the same level onto a non-solid diagonal top you can stand mid-air if you keep walking/rotating, just like with non-solid slopes and thinner blocks. So I guess that's just an aspect of any non-standard block shape.

The plans are p. ambitious, even 12 missions is plenty I'd say, still, hope y'all can manage to do the whole thing.

Having to actually drive the Wang Cars is good, and the varied challenges sound much more interesting than just another type of collectible.

Also I took another look at the screenshots in the album so I will point out some other stuff:
There's a glitch where driving off a drop onto slopes without a block of height separation make you able to drive midair and even gain more height as long as you stay above slopes, you fall off otherwise. Long vehicles don't need the slopes to be adjacent, as long as part of the sprite is on the drop-off block and above the slope simultaneously. There's more specifics but it's hard to explain. For 1:2 slopes without drops onto slopes, about halfway past their length you can hang a car off the edge much farther than normal, it can also gain height from that. There's even more GTA2 Map Jank(tm) that can happen btw but I didn't notice anything else in the screenshots.

I also saw there's a meteorite, neat, I wonder what that's about.

[trubetz]

Thanks for more input!

The suggestions about the tree are good, but they will have to wait until the bulk of the map is done. Implementing them in a way that looks good will take a lot of time, and finishing the whole thing is a bigger priority.

I got exactly what you meant about the diagonal tops; I've replaced them with standard blocks where they could be walked on. That made a carkour building slightly more challenging by the way .

Valps says coding is easier than building; coming up with 12 jobs with right difficulties that aren't boring and don't feel like a rehash of the original GTA 2 missions is kind of a challenge though. Surprisingly, ideas for 8 Wang Cars were comparatively easy to generate.

Regarding the slopes, I aren't sure what you mean; I'd need screenshots or a videocapture. I know dummy traffic looks weird on 1:2 slopes, hence I make sure no traffic spawns or such slopes (AFAIK, in the original game there is only one place like this on the main roads that does spawn dummy cars). I know the slopes could be exploited to manipulate the car Z-coordinate, but in most cases that doesn't happen by accident during playing. As for skips and manipulations, I don't really strive to patch the engine loopholes; one can skip a lot of stuff with Molotov Cocktail flight, and preventing those skips would be tedious. The project's objective is have people have fun, and if someone has fun exploiting the faults of the game engine, it's good for them.

All that said, there is definitely a quirk that should be addressed in the southwest of the central island where pedestrians apparently clip through the grates and splash into water and seemingly this is because of weird slope behavior; I'll find an appropriate architectural solution for that one day.

As for the meteorite, I figured the religious freaks need a holy site, and somehow a piece of space rocks was what came to mind. Don't expect big lore here, I'm not too good of a storymaker.

[_L1pE_]

That's all fair.

Regarding slope issues, I had thought I'd mention them just in case, there are other possible issues besides skips and such, but you said it's unlikely to happen on accident anyway. For what I said about the 1:2 ones, don't worry about it, it's usual slope shenanigans but more minor, mentioned more for completeness sake as I was already rambling.

About peds and slopes, not sure what the geometry there is like so could be a couple things.

And I thought there might be a mission involving the meteorite or smth, but it's still interesting background detail.

[trubetz]

I can confirm! There certainly will be a mission involving the meteorite, and a really good one!