So. I just went through the Tres JP SNES level, balancing on-foot exploration with flying. It is, especially beautiful. All those vibrant colors convey the SNES retro feel very well. I did not realize the implications of exploring a previously-known space that is represented in 3D instead of top-down... various things were present on-screen at once that took me by surprise. I ddin't realize a mountain was so close to the main gate, for example.
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I immediately checked for ammunition in my favorite old spot, to the lower-right amidst yellow compies... Nada. I went downwards and into the jungle, finding.. no Raptors. And, no electrical shock strips.
Oh, as a note, the level crashed for me frequently, at first. I refused to not play the level in software mode, so I mixed and matched quality and resolution settings until I found that max-quality at 320x240 had very infrequent crashing. I believe the high density of polygons for the jungle-boarder model(s) was the culprit.
Moving on, I came to the South Utility Shed...! Yay, my old model finally gets to be home in his original setting. Like a long-term migration. It looked quite cute... I imagine that, if you had decided to move forward with re-creating the interiors of all the buildings from the SNES game, it would have taken you a further two years. : | So, sad as it is, that seems for the best. It was actually a bit odd, in that I felt at times to be semi-cheating, in that playing this Tres version of the map revealed relative locations and general map-awareness not available from playing the original SNES game. As a result I avoided certain perspectives and tried to stick with my usual paths through the map.
The mountains are impressive. Really too bad you can't climb them. I enjoyed seeing the retro textures in use, particularly in pixelation from software mode. The Geo Plant -ish water trench was nice, too. The blue helped the color palette of explorable area. That Rex was neat to run into... I am getting the impression you frequently do not import vocal cubes into your levels until late in development? I'm afraid I don't understand how you do it. Well, strictly speaking I can imagine you mental interpret that it's not of special importance and interrupts the proceedance to actual work on the level. But both hearing that basketball sound over and over, and missing the experience of semi-living AI in the engine as you test your creation, seems... depressing.
The major building mock-ups were fun to look at. I was sad to not see the trench-spanning bridges, or the herd of Gallimimus. And - really, you could have put those motion sensors Sam made in. That, that would have been fun to see. *sigh*
At any rate, very fun level! Thank you much for spending the time on it that you did, and for releasing it to us so that it's not lost. I also thank you for moving forward Trespasser's progress timeline for retro-game representation, such as was started with "Escape from Jurassic Park" and the tiny test level made for it. I still imagine that, one day, an SNES-styled Trespasser map will be made and released in a functional gameplay state.
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