Quake Map Magazine - Carson Utz

#### The first map ever released by Alex was the engrossing and well received Crater's Edge. Alex shares his views on Quake2 and his quest for designing a level with replayability.

I'm 20 years old, living in the city of Brisbane, in the sunny state of Queensland, on a big island called Australia.

I studied Business Management for a short period of time before dropping out to study film and screenwriting. When Quake came along I got hooked on level design and I've been doing it ever since.

The best work I've done is always what I'm currently working on, but Crater's Edge is the best map I've released ;)

There's some stuff in my Quake maps that really impressed me, and I've had some requests to release some of my earlier work, but I doubt I ever will.

C r a t e r ' s E d g e
Movies probably inspire me the most as maps to me are like small interactive movies. Other games tend to be a good source of ideas too. Super Mario was (is) a highly addictive and satisfying game. Challenging the player, yet not frustrating him/her; rewarding the player for their achievements; and providing an enjoyable experience; are some of the gameplay strategies that I'm trying to learn.

I also study other designers levels for atmosphere, lighting, gameflow, combat situations, and cool ideas.

When I was designing levels for Quake I was hooked on American McGee's work. His levels had some awesome atmosphere and some great gameplay. Now that I'm designing levels for Q2 I'd have to say that I'm really impressed with Tim Willits and his levels. Q2 has practically made him a God.

I'd have to say my favourite level designer, though, would be Levelord. He knows how to break the rules and make maps that seems to be limited only by his imagination. His maps certainly don't fit into the category of standard levels that I see being created today.

I'll have to say that Quake 2 is an enjoyable game, and looks really good, but that's about it. In my opinion, the AI hasn't really improved since Doom, and that's a shame. I've spent quite a long time trying to predict what a player is going to do when they enter an area, and setting up a combat strategy to counter that, but players always find a weakness in a monsters AI and end up exploiting it. After that a map, and even the game, can end up losing its replayability. Hopefully future games will offer an improvement.

On the other hand, Quake 2 is great to design with, and it's been challenging learning how to use the games attributes and limitations.

C r a t e r ' s E d g e
I've been using Worldcraft religiously since it's first beta release. More than half of Crater's Edge was designed using WC before the Q2 supported version was released and that caused some headaches, but I still think WC is the best editor currently out there - at least for me anyway.

My current computer is a P200, 32mb SDRAM, Monster 3D, etc. I'm really in need of some extra memory, and a larger monitor would put a big grin on my face.

What do I do in my free time? Ummm, what free time? Designing levels has kept me pretty busy and given me a lot of sleepless nights. When I do take a break from it, during some long compiles, I tend to watch movies and TV, play games, read and sleep.

I check Blues News everyday, and Redwood's, PlanetQuake and ION Storm on a regular basis. I'll pretty much try and pass over every worthwhile Quake/Q2/Hexen/etc related site over the course of a week.

What's coming up? It's a secret... in fact, even I don't know what's going on. No-one tells me anything. I can tell you this though: straight after I finish this interview I'm going to go and make myself a coffee, and maybe even a sandwich.

As to what project I'm working on, you'll all know soon enough, most likely within the next month or so. It's what's called anticipation, or, as we like to call it in Australia, anticipation.

I'd like to take a moment to thank some of the people who have helped me over time. Firstly I'd have to thank GibFactory for talking level design with me and for doing those 4am compiles. Gotta thank my little brother Mark for looking over my shoulder and telling me what sucks. My friend, Coffee, for keeping me on the job. And finally I have to thank Dale "Empyrean" Freya for being such a good friend all these years. He's lent me hardware when my computer's spit the dummy, and has kept me motivated in my work. Oh, and I've got to thank my parents for putting up with me.

I'm also grateful for all the people who played my map, and to those who emailed me.

~Alex "Mad Rex" Richardson - May 6, 1998

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