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In 1998 I constructed my third single player user map “Light & Shadow” for the famous first person shooter Duke Nukem 3D. I named it this way because of the many dropping shadows in the level which was very hard to do with the so called “BUILD”-editor for the game. It took my whole 6 weeks school vacation and a lot of testing. I uploaded it with my 56k-Modem to my long-gone website and never imagined that anybody would actually play it or in best case having fun playing it until the end. Until today when I suddenly found a review of my map on the internet…

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The “Light & Shadow” review by dukerepository.com is dated to the year 2007 and published while the map was released by me to the public in late 1999. And to my huge surprise the author of the review rated my map with a rocking score of 90%! I know that today the game itself isn’t really visually stunning any more. In fact it looks like crappy compared to current computer games. But back in 1996 after the original Duke Nukem 3D game was released it was the coolest things you could see on your pentium 75. But none the less the puzzles and the pacing in the level is not perfect but still fun to play. The main idea of the level is to destroy a whole city by collecting key cards. These key cards are optained by solving easy puzzles with switches and hidden passages. It is also interesting to see today how much change in the level after I learned to much about usability and making films. To me making websites and movies which which are enjoyable to the audience and the users is surprisingly similar to the task of building a level for a game.

making these shadows was a elaborate task

Because I am so happy that actually someone played my level and oviously liked it I made a trailer for my level. But you can of course play also play it for yourself if you don’t fear the blast from the past:

1. Get a copy of Duke Nukem 3D Atomic Edition 1.4
2. Download and install DOSBox, a x86 emulator with DOS
3. Optional: Or install the High Resolution Pack with Windows-Support
4. Download the Light and Shadow-Map (lghtshdw.zip)
5. copy the map into your Duke Nukem 3D Folder
6. Start a “New Game” and select “User Map”
7. enjoy!

“Light & Shadow” Trailer

Related links

• “Light & Shadow” review by dukerepository.com
• High Resolution Pack for Duke Nukem 3D
• Download Light and Shadow-Map (lghtshdw.zip)
• Download Sunshine (Our House)-Map (sunshine.zip)
• Download For Gods Sake-Map (4godsake.zip)