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Was hungry for Drake content. Was happily surprised seeing Drake content in 2026.
Being a first release it's not bad, I'm honestly surprised you went with something as ambitious as Drake for a first set of maps, but there seems to be an pretty solid understanding of the mod's mechanics.
Like others have said, first thing off the bat is that maps are super blocky and room-to-room, like a super old 1996/7 map. That comes with time, I did notice a number of odd leaks in the geometry, a little too many to count but I know off the bat in the first level there's one by one of the first hedges you pass.
Biggest thing to improve on with geometry is really just the spacing. A lot of times, there's a lot of awkward, empty space. Making things tighter and smaller is better for quick manueverability. Big example is that section in episode 4 with the big lava pit where you had to hop on a moving platform. Does it have to be that long? The sole episode 3 map is a bit of an offender in this regard too, both outside and inside the main pyramid in the middle. Alternatively, adding combat encounters in these areas is a good way to keep someone engaged, but with that...
... Ammo/health pickups. Pickup distribution felt super weird here. I'd find myself seeing more than enough health pickups in a small room with a couple enforcers and modified grunts, not a tough fight. A few rooms down the line, I'm fighting Armagon, getting my ass kicked, and scrambling to find-- no pickups in the room with the whole ahh boss in it. Putting pickups near harder rooms is better, and more ammo was often needed. Drake caps rockets at 50. There were almost zero armor pickups throughout the whole thing. It felt a little awkward then running into a whole bunch of health pickups together, like an "omigosh so sorry here's a million HP!" It feels a little messy, spacing out healthkits a little better (whilst putting more by harder fights) makes things flow smoother.
On account of weapons, I found myself using the vanilla repertoire more than anything else I basically only got special weapons from enemy drops, which was unintentional. Drake offers a lot of cool weapons, but it's easy for both mappers and players to use the same vanilla weapons. Forcing more unconventional weapons like the MIRV/Sidewinder whilst not providing a regular RL for a bit is an example of challenging players with the Drake arsenal. Of course, with a lack of cell pickups minus those huge panic drops in the penultimate level, the new cell weapons weren't of much use.
Secrets were alright, heck even quite good for someone's first map. You have a good grasp of using breakables, although I recommend more small cracks in 'em in the future. It's more or less a standard practice, and I think that would help greatly with the room in episode 4 where you had to break the 4 beams on the ceiling to drop the big drill. I had no idea what to do until I started firing rockets haphazardly around me out of boredom (shrinking that room would also help a little, even compared to the drill, it's super big). Was a little sad some of the big vent systems in episode 4 didn't house any secrets, a lot of missed potential there. Good to see breakable secrets and one behind the portraits in the castle map. I think it'd be cool if more unique Drake items (ie special armors, heart of darkness, tome of power) were in secrets, as well as special ways to access secrets with things like the boots of levitation or...
The grappling hook. You get it pretty early on, but it seems like everyone forgets about it. It's good for moving through aforementioned giant maps or annoying mobs of allied AI, but having boss arenas that have areas that you could grapple to for strategy or hiding secrets behind grapple-exclusive spots would've made things interesting.
Last thing I'd like to share is my opinion on the bosses. As others have said, too hard. This mostly stems back to the issue with resource pickups mentioned earlier. Biggest examples are the black dragon in the third-ish map, the gugs and Armagon fights in the final prison, and the final level. The dragon especially-- how the heck would you even beat it? All the pickups in the map are not enough. I had to go god, quad damage, impulse 9, and then use the blizzard cannon to finally kill it. Without cheats, I ended up just running. In the prison, I was running very low on health, even with the all the allied AI on my side. The final boss... hooo boy. The scarce weapon pickups at the start weren't enough ammo, and basically no health pickups. That enemy in the center is a Sha'Vile, meaning it's got the hitscan attack of an archvile, with way more range than a regular Shambler's. You are being attacked by vores, shamblers, and a sha'vile... in an arena with zero cover. You have to bait infighting to have a fighting chance. As per the CEO fight, zero health pickups, zero armor... that's when I went full god, quad, MIRV... the arena itself is empty and blank, another way to minimize all that empty dead space is adding cover alongside enemy encounters. Just a few pillars isn't enough against an enemy of that speed and intelligence, never mind varied arsenal. Sure you have a crapton of allies, but it's important to remember that their navigation AI is jank, their weapons are weak, and they basically inevitably die. In episode 3, they all started telefragging themselves as they entered the portal to the top of the pyramid (see image) I know it can feel cool and even goofy having so many allies, but it kind of just feels awkward when you do most of the fighting + they inevitably die + you struggle walking through all of them. I think Tronyn himself only used about 4-5 allies at a time in the handful of maps where he included them.
All in all though, I hope all this helps if you're still working on this, or choose to make more Drake content in the future. Even Tronyn's first releases weren't perfect. If anything, I'd say look over the readmes in the devkit folders for Drake to look at the health values of enemies and ammo counts/weapon gimmicks, and if you haven't already, play through ARWOP, Unforgiven, Something Wicked, etc. that lead up to Drake's creation. It might provide a good picture of solid encounter design. Good work.
Being a first release it's not bad, I'm honestly surprised you went with something as ambitious as Drake for a first set of maps, but there seems to be an pretty solid understanding of the mod's mechanics.
Like others have said, first thing off the bat is that maps are super blocky and room-to-room, like a super old 1996/7 map. That comes with time, I did notice a number of odd leaks in the geometry, a little too many to count but I know off the bat in the first level there's one by one of the first hedges you pass.
Biggest thing to improve on with geometry is really just the spacing. A lot of times, there's a lot of awkward, empty space. Making things tighter and smaller is better for quick manueverability. Big example is that section in episode 4 with the big lava pit where you had to hop on a moving platform. Does it have to be that long? The sole episode 3 map is a bit of an offender in this regard too, both outside and inside the main pyramid in the middle. Alternatively, adding combat encounters in these areas is a good way to keep someone engaged, but with that...
... Ammo/health pickups. Pickup distribution felt super weird here. I'd find myself seeing more than enough health pickups in a small room with a couple enforcers and modified grunts, not a tough fight. A few rooms down the line, I'm fighting Armagon, getting my ass kicked, and scrambling to find-- no pickups in the room with the whole ahh boss in it. Putting pickups near harder rooms is better, and more ammo was often needed. Drake caps rockets at 50. There were almost zero armor pickups throughout the whole thing. It felt a little awkward then running into a whole bunch of health pickups together, like an "omigosh so sorry here's a million HP!" It feels a little messy, spacing out healthkits a little better (whilst putting more by harder fights) makes things flow smoother.
On account of weapons, I found myself using the vanilla repertoire more than anything else I basically only got special weapons from enemy drops, which was unintentional. Drake offers a lot of cool weapons, but it's easy for both mappers and players to use the same vanilla weapons. Forcing more unconventional weapons like the MIRV/Sidewinder whilst not providing a regular RL for a bit is an example of challenging players with the Drake arsenal. Of course, with a lack of cell pickups minus those huge panic drops in the penultimate level, the new cell weapons weren't of much use.
Secrets were alright, heck even quite good for someone's first map. You have a good grasp of using breakables, although I recommend more small cracks in 'em in the future. It's more or less a standard practice, and I think that would help greatly with the room in episode 4 where you had to break the 4 beams on the ceiling to drop the big drill. I had no idea what to do until I started firing rockets haphazardly around me out of boredom (shrinking that room would also help a little, even compared to the drill, it's super big). Was a little sad some of the big vent systems in episode 4 didn't house any secrets, a lot of missed potential there. Good to see breakable secrets and one behind the portraits in the castle map. I think it'd be cool if more unique Drake items (ie special armors, heart of darkness, tome of power) were in secrets, as well as special ways to access secrets with things like the boots of levitation or...
The grappling hook. You get it pretty early on, but it seems like everyone forgets about it. It's good for moving through aforementioned giant maps or annoying mobs of allied AI, but having boss arenas that have areas that you could grapple to for strategy or hiding secrets behind grapple-exclusive spots would've made things interesting.
Last thing I'd like to share is my opinion on the bosses. As others have said, too hard. This mostly stems back to the issue with resource pickups mentioned earlier. Biggest examples are the black dragon in the third-ish map, the gugs and Armagon fights in the final prison, and the final level. The dragon especially-- how the heck would you even beat it? All the pickups in the map are not enough. I had to go god, quad damage, impulse 9, and then use the blizzard cannon to finally kill it. Without cheats, I ended up just running. In the prison, I was running very low on health, even with the all the allied AI on my side. The final boss... hooo boy. The scarce weapon pickups at the start weren't enough ammo, and basically no health pickups. That enemy in the center is a Sha'Vile, meaning it's got the hitscan attack of an archvile, with way more range than a regular Shambler's. You are being attacked by vores, shamblers, and a sha'vile... in an arena with zero cover. You have to bait infighting to have a fighting chance. As per the CEO fight, zero health pickups, zero armor... that's when I went full god, quad, MIRV... the arena itself is empty and blank, another way to minimize all that empty dead space is adding cover alongside enemy encounters. Just a few pillars isn't enough against an enemy of that speed and intelligence, never mind varied arsenal. Sure you have a crapton of allies, but it's important to remember that their navigation AI is jank, their weapons are weak, and they basically inevitably die. In episode 3, they all started telefragging themselves as they entered the portal to the top of the pyramid (see image) I know it can feel cool and even goofy having so many allies, but it kind of just feels awkward when you do most of the fighting + they inevitably die + you struggle walking through all of them. I think Tronyn himself only used about 4-5 allies at a time in the handful of maps where he included them.
All in all though, I hope all this helps if you're still working on this, or choose to make more Drake content in the future. Even Tronyn's first releases weren't perfect. If anything, I'd say look over the readmes in the devkit folders for Drake to look at the health values of enemies and ammo counts/weapon gimmicks, and if you haven't already, play through ARWOP, Unforgiven, Something Wicked, etc. that lead up to Drake's creation. It might provide a good picture of solid encounter design. Good work.
Nice little 'first' map!
The brushwork and lighting is a bit simple, and there are beam-in monsters in the basement. But this will improve. General monster placement quite good.
The important thing - the ideas - are in place! I'm looking forward to see what the next map will be like....
Thanks for Your work, thanks for sharing, and welcome aboard!
The brushwork and lighting is a bit simple, and there are beam-in monsters in the basement. But this will improve. General monster placement quite good.
The important thing - the ideas - are in place! I'm looking forward to see what the next map will be like....
Thanks for Your work, thanks for sharing, and welcome aboard!
A huge and challenging map. Lots of ambushes and tough monsters. After 20 minutes, I had to ditch the gamepad and switch to a mouse with quicksave and quickload. You can't afford to waste ammo and have accidental hits in this map and one of the killroms let me know that the gamepad lacks precision. Lots of secrets, very well hidden, because I found almost none I think there are hidden enemies and gameplay behind the secrets. There must be a jetpack or double jump somewhere. I generally don't enjoy large maps, but this one is quite linear and hard to get lost, wraps around itself well, and is focused despite its size. The game played well and was on a razor's edge.
I think there are hidden enemies and gameplay behind the secrets. There must be a jetpack or double jump somewhere. I generally don't enjoy large maps, but this one is quite linear and hard to get lost, wraps around itself well, and is focused despite its size. The game played well and was on a razor's edge.