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CAPPUCCINO SKY - /
A CTF remake of abattle1, for FireSword's level remake contest /
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Welcome to Nick's Cafe! Thanks for choosing our 'Cappuccino Sky' special.
Why don't you take a look at the ingredients,
some trivia, and the recipe while you're enjoying the drink?
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jgs \""--..__ __..--""/
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Level name: Cappuccino Sky - from the movie 'Vanilla Sky', the colour of
the textured background and the presence of TWO(!)
'Nick's Cafe's in the level.
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Level author: White Rabbit
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Game type: Capture the Flag
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Recommended settings: 640x480 resolution, 16-bit colour mode, textured
background ON, Low Detail OFF, Hardware Acceleration
OFF. Ambient lightning is optional.
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Layers used: All 8
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Tileset used: Townhouse - by Dean Dodrill
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Music: White Coffee - by djzip and ragOOn
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Some additional information:
Layout - Mostly based on that of the original TSF abattle1. The level is
not 100% symmetrical but it is basically abattle1
flipped and transferred over to the right side as well as the left. There
are 3 main planes: the 'streets', the 'intermediate
stairways', and the 'upper rooftops'. The level was already quite open to
begin with, and it was decided that it should stay
that way, so few additional platforms were added.
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Eyecandy - Townhouse was not fully utilised, but there is certainly more
eyecandy than in the original abattle1, and not just
because the level was more than doubled in size. Most eyecandy was inspired
by 5 Alive or derived from Scraper City although
efforts to create a more imaginative city landscape failed miserably...
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Event placement - Some events are placed so that the player can run at full
speed, hit a spring, and then smoothly collect
ammo as he flies through the air. Every effort has been made to put food in
areas where they will be seen but least
likely to be eaten, since the 'Sugar Rush' music is not worthy of
interrupting 'White Coffee'. There are also a few MCEs,
which you will have to find yourself. ;-) There used to be even more, but
they caused problems because they would not respawn
properly and, instead, crash JJ2 when accidentally touched by the host.
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Other - If you haven't noticed already, there are TWO(!) 'Nick's Cafe's in
the level. You are also recommended to venture
into the mysterious, hypnotising suckertubes and check out Alexander
Brandon's latest invention!
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Short history:
Planning - When FireSword announced his remake contest, Treasure 1, Capture
1 and Battle 3 were my top 3 levels of choice.
That turned out to be a bad decision. Hardly any progress was made with the
Treasure 1 remake before everything ground to a
halt, out of sheer lack of inspiration and motivation. Then, almost a month
later, Christmas break started and this amazing
(with retrospect, quite ordinary and sensible) idea started forming itself.
Why not use abattle1 instead? It was, it seemed,
the perfect choice for a remake. abattle1 was a ghost town. There was no
ammo, no start positions, and only a few enigmatic
springs and warps dotted the streets and buildings. You just couldn't fail
to make a remake worse than the original...
The game type was immediately changed to CTF, and all sorts of expansions
were thought of. Underground streets, more towers,
more, more, more. They all appeared to be perfectly good ideas at the time,
so trial and error was used in order to weed out
the lesser concepts.
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Building - The whole level was flipped and turned into a good old, classic,
conventional, symmetrical CTF level. It's
almost as if the designers meant for it to become such a level...there was
a opening in a slope that looked built for a
CTF base (of course, the slope had to be opened and other routes created,
to avoid lots of camping there...the addition of
a non-parking sign will also, theoretically, help). The rest of the
level-making process is dull and mundane, with lots of
playtesting to test springs, ammo placement, and warp target
experimentation, etc, etc. It just shows how much work but also
how little (real) planning went into the level. :-P
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Refining - ...and then came the betatesters! To be short, they helped. They
helped with everything from the eyecandy, to the
layout, the gameplay/flow, the event placement, and even commented on the
background in 8-bit colour mode. Food was suggested
by none, but it seemed like a good and, most importantly, harmless idea.
Small last-minute tweaks such as moving the blue
base 1 tile to the left left the level about as good as it could get
without major redesigns or even further scrutinisation.
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Betatesters:
BlurredD - Uncanny ability to spot 'One Way' gaps in the stairways.
ChippieBW - Pointed out layout issues and showed off his startling immunity
to *hypno*
Cooba - Hated the level and he decided to delete TSF so he would never have
to see it again. (May or may not be true.
Ask Cooba himself for more information).
Enigma - Revealed the frightening dangers of MCEs for the host. Makes a
good proponent for the usage of one way stairways.
DanYjel - 'If Jazz can't do it, no one can' (Of course, I still failed
making the entire level completely Jazz friendly...)
FQuist - Official wall eater. Helped me smoothen the flow and called
himself something using an abbreviation I did not want
to ask about.
Grytolle - Advised me to put in tonnes of power-ups and ammo, especially
the seeker PU. Helped me sort out a lot of balance
issues among many other things.
Not CelL - CelL did nothing for this level. But it was nice of him to come
and look at it later on, anyway. It helped me to
get a good idea of how the gameplay was like during an actual CTF game,
rather than betatesting session, and if I didn't host
the level, I'd never find the wrongly-placed carrots. He did do something
after all. ;-P
Not DarkSonic - DarkSonic did nothing for this level.
Not R3ptile - R3ptile did nothing for this level.
Not Spotty - Spotty did nothing for this level. Please don't judge my level
poorly because of this, Spoy. D-:
Vivando - He sees <s>dead people</s> things in walls I wasn't
able to spot. Because they were invisible for the host.
UNKNOWNFILE - Apparently he must've done something, or he wouldn't be in
this list of betatesters.
Vegito - Also helped spot 'One Way' gaps in the stairways. Preferred to die
by FQuist's hands rather than listen to me.
Yasco - Said nice things about the level. Thanks very much. (Did little
else).
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Final credits:
Joan G. Stark - for making the brilliant ASCII coffee mug in this readme
(her initials are at the bottom left and the JJ2
sign was added by...someone else...not her).
Stijn - for creating the now-supposedly-legendary '*hypno*' smiley on the
JCF
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Author's comments: I enjoyed making Cappuccino Sky a lot, since it's only
my 3rd CTF level ever! I still have a lot to learn,
and I won't get rid of my dependency on betatesters for quite a while.
Maybe I am showing improvement, since this is the
largest level I have ever created, and yet the whole thing took only 6 days
to make. Only Santranigus V took less time
(er, 48 hours). So, this is just one level. It won't take you long to look
through it and (maybe) review it. ;-)
*hypno*Rate it nicely!*hypno*
