Escape Ultima - very hard time trial (updated Aug. 12-13)

[radiant]

Cody Munholland ("Goku") originally created two versions of the Escape map: an easy version that had a few extra checkpoints and some "boost rings" that served as free tickets right to the end of their respective obstacles, and a hard version that removed the boosts and knocked out a few extra platforms for the hell of it. The hard version, in particular its brutal final section, has been a rite of passage for players looking to make the most of the movement system.

Entry to the club just got harder.

shirepirate started working on a reskin of Escape a while ago, to get rid of those goofy computer monitor textures on the walls, and eventually got to making changes to the geometry itself. Then adding completely new areas, so that legendary 115-meter U-shaped dash across water, lasers, and low ceilings...is no longer the finish line you're looking for. In fact, it's barely halfway. I joined the remodeling effort at some point, and now you can drive yourself insane like never before.

Warning: This is an extremely difficult map to complete all the way, although it has been tested to completion under both 1.4 and 1.5 physics. If you can't get through all the official trials comfortably, suffice it to say you're not going to get very far in this one. You can still download it, though, so that one day when you're adept enough to get through all those maps, you can move on to testing yourself with some custom maps that are a bit harder...and then, finally, you might have what it takes to get through this whole map. And on that day, all will be right with the world.


"Sure, you cleared out the lava and filled in the space with something less intimidating, but I still can't swim. Remember? Oh, but...I thought that after that long wallrun to the left, the hole was supposed to go DOWN, progressing to the next section. What kind of sick contraption could be off to the left?"


"And all the red obstacles look like they've been hit with buildups of extra water. How do you expect me to jump across that?"


"Well done, apprentice. Obviously, this place doesn't correspond to anything that's been in your memory bank. The good news is, you're almost done. The bad news is, you're way down there and the exit tunnel is way up here. Clearly, in order to get to where you are now, you've already had to cross a 75-meter gap using nothing but your imagination, so I know you believe in yourself. But this one's different. This time, you're fighting against gravity itself, and these four blocks in the sky are all the support you get. You don't want to watch your hope dwindle away to nothingness here, of all places, right?"

(Note: Neither of us is much good with the lights, so that aspect of the level may be due for tweaking in a later version. Unfortunately, the group of people who know good aesthetics in map lighting, and the group that's interested in challenging a map like this, tend not to have much overlap.)

[SniperGoth]

I got to the yellow laser party, then couldn't finish it because i can't get to the last plattform, and the impulse ends right there.
Also, screenshot.

[Honno]

You're evil radiant. Pure evil.

[bonifarz]

[radiant]

Sure, the running strips in 4-1 could do to be better delineated, and now I've updated the map so they are. Also a structural change toward the end of 4-3 to make it slightly harder, but nothing big. If you've gotten that far, it's unlikely to affect you.

Also, this stage has an undocumented feature (well, undocumented until now): If you play in vampire mode, there will be some extra checkpoints on the intermediary platforms in 4-3 and throughout section 5.

[bonifarz]

This map is huge, crazy, frustrating ... and addicting!

Once you got used to the texturing style and steep difficulty curve, there are plenty of innovative challenges to explore, I really like that.

I see the point of the optional (mutator specific) checkpoints, as players can hit these without actually landing on a save spot. They are very nice to have, especially if you don't know the map yet.

[shirepirate]

it's sad when the map's creator can't finish it in a respectable amount of time :/
but i'll get there!

[qreeves]

[unixfreak]

That second blue room with the U corridor and lasers.... argh! pzap! suck it! I still haven't got past that part lol.

[radiant]

We made some changes last night, moving and enlarging a couple of the checkpoints so that they cover what they're supposed to, and don't give phantom progress while it's not merited. There's also a bit of a cosmetic tweak to the start, which would have been preferable if the game could mark sectors as lava without giving them the lava texture, because obitdeath is horrendously overloaded. The new version is updated in the first post.

You can also have a (1.4-compatible) demo to see how I play the level. This was good for 6:19, and a perfect lap--if anyone should ever be able to throw down such a thing here--is in the realm of 4 minutes. I haven't ruled out making a longer playthrough of the level, annotating the path as I go, but this isn't it. Yet.

[bonifarz]

[shirepirate]

[qreeves]

I actually think the map has lost some of its charm with the removal of the neon theme. I know the textures originally selected were a bit hard on the eyes, but the theme now looks slightly bland and uninteresting. It also makes some of the "hints" look very out of place (for example the coloured areas on the ground beneath the floating platforms of their respective colour). If the environment is unbelievable/unrealistic then it is easier for the brain to disregard any "fourth-wall"-breaking moments, now it just looks like someone got a little trigger happy when they were doing the paint job with a road line marking machine.

I know this kind of feedback is more appropriate for normal arena map, but I have been hoping for a while now to see more inclusion-worthy time trial maps to appear, and that really does require an aesthetic value on the same level. I don't think we should exclude these "hardcore" maps from the game, but complement an array of them for all skill levels.

[bonifarz]

[radiant]

There's a new version up, which adds advice monitors that you can consult by pressing E. This should make the level slightly more tractable if you haven't seen it before, but you still need a good grasp of what you're doing to make it all the way.

Also, there's a bit of a translucent shell around the last stepping stone, to make it easier to see. One thing I'm concerned about is that players might be led into thinking that this shell forms a larger platform that's solid, only to be surprised when they fall right through. Letting the player know where the next target is (after they get up to the blue block) is a worthy objective, but does this setup accomplish it the right way?

Feel free to experiment with playing parts of the level in edit mode, rather than having to go all the way through the long path to get to a certain part.

[bonifarz]

[Goku]

Very nice!

Ill leave some feedback after I have spent some time with it!