NOTE: To play Xerania's fall in Unreal Tournament and you don't have the Unreal music files: "Warlord.umx", "Newmca16.umx" and "K_Vision.umx" you can download them here

Plot: The Skaarj have created a creature called "Xerania" that has wreaked terrible destruction on several worlds. It has become so powerful that nothing exists that is able to stop it. Your job is to use a derelict Skaarj Time portal to travel back in time while Xerania is still weak. You must destroy 3 power nodes that supply power to the shield that protects Xerania and then destroy the creature.

"Xerania's Fall" was my first release as a Single Player adventure. And has received very favourable reviews on many sites. Here are some ratings this map has received:

EvilDead SP reviews: 95/100
The vault: 80%
Nali City: 8/10
Unreal Action: 7.95/10
Featured in PC-Gamer magazine On-line arena

PLOT: Following on from "Xerania's Fall" you find yourself on a mission to destroy the Skaarj Time portal and start a war between the Skaarj and the Krall.

"Invasion"  contains 5 levels and an end cut scene. Again, this has received some very good reviews:

EvilDead SP reviews: 97/100,
Nali City: 10/10
Unreal Action: 10/10 (gold award)
Featured in PC-Gamer magazine On-line arena
 

"This map is a fine example of a concept level perfectly executed"

PLOT: At the point of death in a seemingly hopeless fight with the Skaarj, you are suddenly transported to a mystical place by an unknown being. You soon find that you are being watched as someone is forcing you to fight to the death against enemies in three unique arenas.

Evil Dead SP reviews: 96/100
Nali City: 10/10

DeCyberDuel was created with a particular concept in mind. I wanted the player to be able to fight the enemy of their choice with the weapon of their choice. The idea seemed to work well, but was probably the most difficult challenge I have had to face with the editor, mainly because the use of triggers was incredibly complex (well, for me anyway. :-)  )

Featured in PC-Gamer magazine On-line arena - runner up
 

PLOT: You are in search of a mystical jewel held in an ancient, abandoned place known as "Arachnopolis". The jewel is a powerful artifact that the nali deemed to be dangerous and so wanted to ensure that it would always be safe. To do this they nurtured a dangerous creature related to the scorpion and in doing so caused there own destrucition within the city walls. Now the place is inhabitted only by these venemous creatures.

Reviews:

Nali City: 8/10

EvilDead SP reviews: 71/100

"You want to send me where?" came your stunned response.The admiral averted your shocked stare and looked once again at the papers on his desk.  "Its out of my hands son. Its a direct request from the Vortex officials. You're to be transported to The White Palace on Vesetia Major where you will carry out your orders and recover our technology."
 "But sir!," you protest, "Its common knowledge that the Nali no longer have control there. The Krall have killed most of them, and the priests that are still alive have been locked up, if they did that to ....."
 "I already told you son," he interupted, "that you have your orders. Now you have two choices. You either go in there and get that 8-ball rocket launcher back before the Krall figure out how to use it, or I inform my superiors who will promptly re-issue your arrest warrant. What's it to be?"
You stare long and hard back into the admiral's squinting eyes. No answer came from your lips. You wanted him to sweat just for a few minutes as he thought about the possibility that you might just say "no" one day. And you knew that scared him, because he knew that no-one else could get the job done, and that there were no facilities anywhere that had the ability to keep you locked up!
 "Now son," the admiral sighed, "You know just how much I respect your .... gifts, It'd be a shame to waste such talent."
 "seeing as you put it so ...nicely admiral, I'll say "yes", but on one condition .... I want my own ship when I get back and a truck load of provisions to see me through the next year."
 The admiral bit his lip, "Done, just get that rocket launcher back, it was only ever intended as a token gift to the Nali, not a schematic for the Krall. Now get outa here." You smile and nod, "I'll get your toys back sir, just get me to the planet and I'll do the rest."

Its been a while since you visited the local cemetery but you thought it was high time you paid a visit to the graves of your relatives. Although you didn't believe in supernatural forces, you couldn't help the tiny shiver that ran down your spine at the thought of the reports in the local paper about this place. It had been deserted quite a while ago and left untouched after several reports of mysterious rituals being performed there. Not wanting to draw attention to yourself, you decided to go at night ..... you soon realise what a terrible mistake that was.
 

My first Deathmatch level! I had a lot of help making this from Obi-wan at Unreal Creations. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing and no idea how to ensure a reasonable framerate. However, in the end, I managed to come up with something half reasonable.

The concept was to include two main areas. One area contained health and armour, but no weapons, and the other area would contain all weapons but no health. In the "health" area a forcefield holds an amplifier which is released by players in the other area treading on a platform when they reach for the more powerful weapons.

There is also a secret area, which I aimed to put in all my levels. Shooting the green cylinder opens up a trapdoor which takes the players to a healing chapel.

Nali City rating: 6/10

 (Also featured in PC Zone magazine)

I was so pleased at getting Joshua's Fortress released that I wanted to get another one done as soon as I could and after a few hours theresult was this. The concept here was a shoot'em up on one level but with a switch on each pillar. Each switch released a different floor tile which drops someone into a lava pit. Shooting all four switches located higher than the rest in the centre pillar releases all the floor plates incinerating everyone in there apart from the person on the island in the middle.

Nali City rating: 5/10

A nightmare to create! I don't think it would be a mistake to say that making portals is the Unreal level designers worst nightmare, and this level had plenty of them! By this time I was fed up with playing bot matches and finding that I had no chance of survival, so I decided to even the odds. The concept here was to make sure that any player wanting to obtain a powerful weapon would have to pass through a portal and solve a problem to get the weapon. The concept seemed to work fine, but I still couldn't beat those bots! There are a few traps in here too, including a nice lava pit triggered from the top of the tower. By now, I had also worked out how to import textures and so I decided to add some of my artwork into the game in the form of portraits.

Also, in the underground area, you'll find four buttons on the centre column. Each button plays a different piece of music, so take your pick. The secret chapel is also in this area too. This level has also been transformed into an SP level as part of Legacy.

Sooner or later, every designer has to do it. Yes, this map is a graphical representation of the place where I work. That's my office there where the gun is pointing! (How sad of me :-D)

I tried to scale the level to be the same as my working environment, and even added in a working "narrow aisle truck" that serves as a lift and a fast way to move up and down the warehouse.

This level is probably best for campers as there are plenty of nice, dark camping spots.

One drawback to this level is that the framerate in the main store area is terrible due to the amount of "racking" in there, but if you stay in the other areas you should have a good time.

Nali City rating: 8/10

This has probably been my most popular creation amongst my DM levels. Since making Elijah's tower I decided that I hadn't had enough punishment with portals and so, here I was again … making more of them! This time the concept was to create an enviroment of complete confusion in the theme of M.C.Escher's style (my favourite artist). This man was a master at creating optical illusions and fascinating imagery, I somehow wanted to capture that.

Not only does this level contain some quality pieces of his handy work, but it also has numerous portals, which simulate a world where normal space/time loses its meaning. There are infinite mirrors where you can fire a dispersion pistol bolt, and if you get it just right, it will go on and on and on….

Some places, you'll find yourself running around in circles unsure if you've been there before and in other places you'll be able to outsmart the enemy by placing yourself near a portal that jumps straight behind them
There is also, once again, a healing chapel located in a secret area.

Nali City review: 9/10

I brought this level out at the same time as "Escher" an as a result it may have been overlooked. But I'm quite please with how this turned out. The textures in this were converted from Hexen2 and distributed for people to use with Unreal. Like many others, I am fascinated by Egyptian design and decided that I would build a level using these texturs. The result was this. Its designed on three levels, each level having a unique layout. A long funnel spans the height of all three levels and contains the most dangerous weapons; however, there is a snag to getting these. The funnel is filled with water and on every level there are floor plates, which seal the funnel at the top end. So, it can be quite good fun to look through the glass at the poor greedy individuals who are trying to use their lungs to breathe water!

I loved the DM level "DMFifth" that came with Unreal. I liked the idea of being able to set of a core explosion by shooting those neat little targets. The trouble was that you could only set it of once! I wanted to create a map where that could be repeated. DeCyberator is designed to be a huge alien machine with an unstable core that needs to be "purged" on occasion. After so many frags the centre part of the level is flooded with deadly radiation destroying everyone in it.

When you start off in this level, you appear in a circular hall with four exits. Each exit leads you to one weapon and one defensive item, then you appear in the main arena. The more powerful weapons can be found by heading into the lift at the centre of the machine and entering one of the small portals.

Again, there is a secret area found by shooting the cross and jumping in the trapdoor where you will find lots of health and armour.

My main thought with this map was to use a texture set that isn't used very often. Eventually I settled with "Queen.utx" which turned out to be a very tricky decision. They are very detailed and so quite awkward to align at times! In addition I wanted to give the map an original flavour by making all the lights shootable. When playing this with any number of people you'll soon find yourself running around in the dark desperate to find a torch! There is also an arena like area with an eightball in the centre. Each of the four doors have a proximity alert that tells you when someone is about to come through them. The overall feel of the map is quite creepy and has an atmosphere of "Alien" about it so I've been told.
 

Mark is quite, quite mad. The strange notion that people will want to run around a charming Christmas scene, with pretty Christmas trees, snowmen, moving sledges, gentle Christmas melodies playing in the background, healing cranberry water tubes, exploding Christmas crackers and blow each other into small Christmas puddings is quite beyond me.
But as I myself (EZkeel) am one eightball short of an arsenal, I jumped
at the chance to work with Mark to make this map. The result as you'll see is quite seasonal. Have fun sliding around in the snow and finding all the Xmas goodies.