Crazy level ideas I've had

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TheIdiot
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Crazy level ideas I've had

Post by TheIdiot »

Over the years, I've come up with a ton of ideas for new Trespasser levels, none of which I really have time to work on and would probably take quite a while considering the grand concepts involved. I thought I might share some of these concepts with you guys and maybe inspire someone to do something similar at some point. I consider the JP SNES level I worked on a while back to be in this category, by the way. :P

-Project XTinction (prehistoric quest level)-
This is the only one of these which actually became anything. Back when I first started Trespasser modding, I wanted to create a level where the player is sent back in time to the prehistoric era a few hours before the meteor strikes the earth. In order to escape the open-world map, you'd have to go around finding the various parts of the time machine in the various regions (a swamp, a gorge, underwater caverns and the heart of a volcano) and bring them back to the camp in the centre of the map. You would actually be timed and only have 3 hours or so to finish the level before a big ASA meteor crashed into the ocean and ended the level.
Naturally, this failed because I couldn't really make 3D models at the time, and the JPDS foliage I was using didn't look right. Luckily, Draco later made his Temporal Trespasser level, which had an excellent prehistoric setting, complete with foliage. I actually did have this level created and roughed out with a fair bit of decoration, but it was lost along with a lot of my other early projects...if I remember correctly, the Operation Lizard Tooth level I released a while ago was somehow involved with this project, and I seem to remember starting RTJP around the time this level disappeared.

-Carnivores-esque hunting level-
This is a more recent idea of mine, and one which I don't think would be too hard to execute. Essentially, the player would spawn in a small hunting lodge with a small pile of "credits" (keycards) on a table. These credits would be inserted into various containers which in turn would select what dinosaur you'd hunt, what island you'd be on, and what gear you'd bring along, as in the Carnivores games. You'd require more credits for the more difficult selections, of course.
Once everything is selected, you'd head off to your ship, whereupon you'd be teleported to a random location on one of four "islands", which would be seperate locations on a large heightmap, along with your gear. A few instances of dinosaur you'd chosen to hunt would also be spawned randomly around the island as well as some other wildlife, and from there you'd have to go hunt the dinosaurs. Each dinosaur killed would spawn more credits back at the hunting lodge once you'd decided to end the hunt, which could then be used to hunt the harder targets, and so on. This would be fully replayable, with everything resetting each time you returned to the lodge.
While it definitely seems complex, the actual level itself would be rather simple, with most of the work being done via scripting. I'd wanted to use four of the actual Carnivores 2 islands as the locations you would hunt on and recreate them faithfully.

-Trespasser park builder-
This idea is similar in execution to the Carnivores concept, except this time, you're building your own Jurassic Park, Operation Genesis-style. Essentially, you'd spawn in your park's Control Room, with an empty 3D map of the park showing all of the available build plots. In order to build your park, you would purchase objects with credits from the Control Room, which would appear as small models you could carry and drop on the map where you want them in the park. This in turn would teleport the appropriate scenery (likely in the form of a few large, single-object combined meshes in order to ease execution) to its location in the actual level terrain, "building" it on the island. You could of course populate your park with dinosaurs in a similar manner. Once you're done building, you'd be able to exit the Control Room and actually walk through the full-size park, viewing your dinosaurs and doing whatever interaction the creator cared to script with the buildings.
It's another script-heavy idea, for sure, but I really think this would be cool to see, even if the gameplay were limited to placing buildings and dinosaurs around. Of all these ideas, this one is definitely my favourite. It could even be expanded to include the possibility of dinosaurs breaking out and the player having to go into the park and bring them down themselves.

-Jurassic Park: The Ride recreation-
I actually did some preliminary work on this one, but 3DS Max decided to crash when I finished up the rough layout of the ride and I was too annoyed to restart. But this is exactly what it says on the tin - a recreation of the JP Ride in Hollywood in Trespasser. This would obviously require extensive ASA animation in order to script the moving boat and the dinosaurs, but can certainly be done. The main snag in this one is actually modelling everything, since so much of the ride's scenery is very original. Nonetheless, this is definitely something achievable, probably with less work required than the more script-heavy ideas above.
Heck, you could even put actual CAnimal dinosaurs in the level. That'd make for a wild ride. :wink:
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Re: Crazy level ideas I've had

Post by tatu »

-Project XTinction (prehistoric quest level)-
I like the idea. While having too many AI active at once would be an issue, creating a good variation of different nature areas would do a lot, as it wouldn't include much man made stuff. :)
-Carnivores-esque hunting level-
Would totally be possible. 99% of it would probably end up being scripting AND testing so the scripting works. :) A bit like Draco's hunt level in PH worked.
-Trespasser park builder-
I think this could be doable. I think the biggest risk would be that the scripting would be so complex and the modder would get lost in it. But if the scripting to be written down before doing it, in like a "tree", that would help, but it would have its limitation of course, but really cool to see.
-Jurassic Park: The Ride recreation-
I think using the ASA animation have been underused for levels. I've always liked the idea of using it to allow the player to open any drawer and cabinet using it without it flying all over the place. :)
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Re: Crazy level ideas I've had

Post by Draconisaurus »

Huh, fascinating ideas TI!

Your Temporal Trespasser - esque level sounds interesting. Honestly I can't remember my full plan for the original version of that level, which would have had multiple InGen facilities... I think you were BioSyn, trying to steal the technology? Or just the dinosaurs? And there were ruins of 65-million-year-old humans on this little island, too, with the climax taking place inside a local volcano. Would have taken too much time..

Carnivores-y hunting level.. Interesting, tho I'd never work on it since I never played those games. The credits system sounds interesting, makes me want to set it up in a test level just for fun.

Park builder! Yikes, IIII wouldn't work on that one. Too complex. Sounds fun tho. I had a similar idea once where a randomly generated maze is generated each time you start up the level, using combinable parts in randomly selected configurations. Guess it was too big for me to work on.

Tres: The Ride... I bet someone could do this one day. Not me, still.
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Re: Crazy level ideas I've had

Post by TheIdiot »

As you guys said, yeah, I definitely agree that these are all do-able, with the main difficulty being the scripting...hence the reason I'm not trying them. Still, I'm glad to hear your guys' opinions on them. As crazy as that park builder idea sounds, to me it's the one I'd like to try the most, even if it is the most grandeur. I guess I just have a thing for building dinosaur parks in Trespasser.

Draco, your Autumn Forest level in-part achieved the Carnivores Hunter-style level I mentioned, though without the selectable loadouts and such. Also, I know I've definitely mentioned that prehistoric level to you in the past, back when you were working on Temporal Tres. I feel like now that we have the resources to do it, the main problem now is that nobody has the time! :P
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Re: Crazy level ideas I've had

Post by Rebel »

I feel like now that we have the resources to do it, the main problem now is that nobody has the time!
Just wait until you become an old fart like me, T.I., you'll realize just how precious time is, especially when you're running out of it! :lol:
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Re: Crazy level ideas I've had

Post by Draconisaurus »

Heheh, even so Rebel releases a new mod every year or so! ;P Honestly I think the small projects are what keep one going when working on huge-ass projects like JPDS. Such as, while working on tc_prequel these years, he worked on smaller ones as he went. I might recommend it..
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