We’re reviewing another old map this week, with the blast from the past “To Hell and Back” by Nintee – a rather lengthy story-focused map that’s a part of his “Last Stand” campaign.
The level has a lot of features that were popular at the time – hiding secrets off-screen, decorating stairwells with background doors and, a feature unique to Nintee’s maps, ash piles that show you the respawn location of a recently deceased undead (my favourite type of oxymoron).
As mentioned previously, this level is pretty big, featuring long stretches of rooms in a fairly linear sequence. There’s plenty of weapons scattered about the place, along with plenty of enemies to empty said guns into. Be sure not to forget about your objective, though – you have to burn all the ash caches spread throughout the level, and backtracking in search of one you missed isn’t fun.
After you deal with that, you arrive in a large room that’s suspiciously quiet…
Wait, is that "The Parrot Is No More"? What could be going on there?
As for the rest of the level? Well, I’d rather not spoil it for you – it’s something much better experienced first-hand.
"A moderator is never late, nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to!" - JAG
Sorry for the delay with this one! Let's not delay this any further and get straight to business.
As fun as long maps can be, sometimes we just have to take a break and enjoy something shorter and simpler – like with today’s “Fish Out Of Water” by RodigroW.
This level has us infiltrating a nightclub to assassinate a target – a Patriarch who, ironically, is the least dangerous threat in the level, as it’s packed to the brim with all sorts of far deadlier enemies who can actually open doors. The map’s very close-quarters, so aiming for the heads as enemies run at you can be challenging.
You can’t exactly just skip past everyone either – there’s a vent system you can take advantage of, but every exit is in clear sight of every enemy, meaning that using vents without taking undead out or distracting them is a huge risk. You have to think carefully about every move you make.
However, the only objective in the map is to kill the Patriarch, meaning if you’re good enough you can eliminate him while leaving the other half of the club untouched. The level’s a little linear, with two main routes that lead to the target, but it’s still a very engaging level that can provide a decent challenge without being a massive time loss if you die, like with bigger levels.
Today we’re exploring something a little bit experimental with Tahazzar’s“Show Who’s Boss”, which aims to create a sort of pseudo boss rush.
The concept of a boss rush, which is essentially going through several bosses consecutively, is somewhat troublesome to imagine working well in DEADBOLT’s environment – making it a series of levels (especially if you just put a bunch of levels from the game’s main campaign in a row) could be dull and tedious and if you choose for it to be a single level, you can run into trouble of just having too many enemies in one spot, andpowerfulenemies at that.
Tazz decided to go with the latter but, fortunately put all the bosses in one large building, sparing a lot of space between bosses and enabling for somewhat fair one-on-one encounters.
As you could tell by looking at previous MotWs, I like hard levels,maybe even too much. And while this one, contrary to what we’d usually see from Tazz, doesn’t have any flashy decorations, it sure as hell delivers on the difficulty and the fun factor, having us face our arch nemesis like Madam Stela with her phylacteries and endless shotgun ammo or Amber & Evelynn with their harvest babble and many alike. No Timur though, darn.
Sure, there’s a lot of space between the bosses, but that space also happens to be filled with other undead. If you’re not careful, you can quickly find yourself out cornered by hordes of dogs and vampires coming your way. As always, the best strategy is divide and conquer.
It’s a nice, simple level that provides a fair challenge with thoughtful enemy placement and just the right amount of guns littered around. While “Show Who’s Boss” isn’t unique with its story or visuals or even anything gameplay-related to begin with, I can still commend it for just focusing on the level design and succeeding in that regard. And hey, at the end of the day – it’s a really fun level.
And what else do you really need but a fun, well designed level?
As finals are approaching, and as this moderator is in fact a real existing person, we occasionally need to delay the MotWs for their sake and outs – but fret not, we’re still silently keeping watch for cool new maps to highlight (among other community-related tasks, of course)
This week’s spotlight is on “Search and Rescue”, the third installment of Classic_Cheese18’s“Diner” series. A great map packed with all kinds of undead (except for zombies – no one likes the Kingz, I guess).
From the opening shot alone, one can get intimidated by the sheer number of powerful enemies that you’ll have to tackle with such limited weaponry, which upon closer inspection isn’t too big a problem considering how you can flank and avoid large groups of enemies, keep to the darkness, and abuse stairwells. With that, the map manages to keep the player on their toes and punish careless actions, yet doesn’t feel like an insurmountable task, with occasional room for error that lets you retreat and rethink your strategies.
As for the level design, the map’s fairly linear – the vent network doesn’t allow access to the top floor of the building, and the two halves are separated by a blocked pipe you’ll need to open to avoid being forced to use the elevator. The decoration is also very praiseworthy – while not being all super flashy and picturesque, each room has a specific theme and has just the amount of details to tell you what you need to know.
Overall, a very impressive map which most certainly overshadows the previous two maps in the series. It’s always a pleasure to get to review maps made by someone other than the-most-popular-mapmakers (you know the ones), even if this isn’t the first time one of Cheese’s levels have been featured here.
Welcome to the first MotW of 2019! New year, same old MotWs! Even down to whose levels we’re highlighting, as this week’s spotlight is on “The December Mixup” by Nintee – a collection of levels that reimagine maps from DEADBOLT’s main campaign.
Unlike the remakes we’ve covered in the past, however, this collection focuses on swapping around the details of maps without changing the layouts. The Dredged warehouse in Horror Show is now a vampire nightclub (appropriately named “Horror Show but with Vampires”), and Puff’s building is now a Demon owned one, with a sniping section where you assassinate a Patriarch in Roland’s building.
With eight levels in total, this campaign allows you to go through an alternate storyline, filled with familiar locations and familiar people, with slight differences in the specifics. What faction owns what, how enemies are laid out, what events take place in each level, all mixed with Nintee’s unique sense of design and, sometimes, humour.
As you could expect from a DEADBOLT campaign, the collection’s got a pretty grim tone and, as the game warns you each time you launch it, contains topics of death and suicide, touching upon them in the same manner as the original campaign. But we’re not all here for the story, many of us are just here to make undead heads explode, and this campaign sure as hell delivers on that.
Long time no see! If you were thinking we left you behind and this community would fall into a silent obscurity, think again, because this time we’re bringing something bigger than a usual MotW – instead of highlighting a map, what if we highlight… the entire community? All of the efforts made to spice up the game experience and make DEADBOLT something unique, molding it into what it is today – this New Year’s special is all about YOU, dear readers!
I know we just said we’d be talking about more than maps, but we really need to start with what’s earned the game the most of its longevity – workshop support, and all of your custom maps that come along with it. And oh boy, is there a lot to talk about.
Throughout this game’s 3 years of existence a major sense of community formed amongst the mapmakers – exchanging feedback, experimenting with the editor, eventually taking part in other aspects of this neat little family. Over the time period many great maps and even campaigns, telling their own story (ranging from sequels and prequels to the campaign, to something entirely new), were released – short and long, action and story focused, optimized and laggy – and while what makes a great map can be quite subjective, we’ve decided to include some of our personal picks (hey, we never said this isn’t biased), sorting maps by what they do best in order for everyone to find something that suits their preferences. And hey, if you don't like anything off this list, you can always search for over a thousand maps that there are on the workshop.
“Into the Reaper-verse”
While DEADBOLT is usually all about breaking into buildings and wiping out everything that moves in it, you shouldn’t forget that with the gritty and mysterious tone that the game sets, there’s plenty of potential for a story. Perhaps a prequel, delving into characters’ backstory and giving an explanation for the events to follow? Maybe even an alternate universe or a sequel? Whatever it may be, these story-heavy campaigns are one hell of a ride.
Tahazzar’s maps are, quite frankly, always a puzzle waiting to be solved, whether it be a cool twist on the game’s mechanics or simply figuring out how on Earth this thing even works, but for now we'll stop on “Ghost Recon” stands out by using a Y-Axis flip on every entity in the level and having two Reapers – one being in some alternate dimension and ours being upside down dealing with not-so-harmless ghosts. Can you figure it out?
“Fish in a Barrel”
If you’re the sort of folk who like when more than two enemies come at you simultaneously, we can recommend “Sinner Dinner” by Alex Pine – a level from his “Deadline” campaign, filled with enemies to the brim. You are given plenty of options for moving around a level and are provided with a powerful arsenal – obviously you wouldn’t go on a horde with just a revolver. Despite that, it doesn’t feel any easier, so get ready for a challenge.
“Death from the Shadows”
Some folks, like myself, like doing everything quietly without drawing any unnecessary attention. The levels presented here are (mostly) all about sticking to the shadows and avoiding enemies as much as possible rather than getting into a fight – “Bypass” by the ever-so-memorable Tahazzar and the first chapter of the Prologue series by SwamDono.
…oh, huh, what’s this?
Using this special occasion, SockPuppet made a New Year-themed map! Can’t miss out on that, so go and play it!
As people delved further into the workings of the level editor, many of its secrets, bugs and unintended features were discovered. Some mindblowing and tricky, others… not so much, but each handy in some way – whether it’d be adding unavailable-in-the-editor objects (or even cut ones) or making your cutscenes much more impressive and pretty – for the curious ones, you can read it all over in these guides:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=761140674
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1103643027
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1483500137
And hey, don’t even get me started on how much you can do by fiddling around with .nc files in a text editor.
While we’re on the topic of creativity, why not talk about artists? These folks also spend countless hours to create something on their computers, but rather than figuring out the mysteries of the level editor, they’re figuring out the mysteries of how the heck you draw skeletons or make the stuff in their heads become reality.
Don’t forget that you can always browse the “Artworks” tab in the Community Hub to find something of your personal liking!
One of the first things that comes to mind is the tarot card collection that was released a few months ago. It was even spotted by hopoo himself and highlighted on his twitter! This card collection is a collaboration between twelve artists, each with their own unique and a bit twisted look on things.
Back when the game first launched, one of the more active artists were CrazyCKen and aemni with their super detailed artworks – almost too good to be true.
Among the community’s artists are some of my friends who, perhaps unsurprisingly, also started out as mapmakers – like Nintee. Nintee’s speciality is pixel art – it’s so well done that hopoo even commended it at one point! He helped out a lot on a Nuclear Throne mod which was supposed to bring DEADBOLT into the game’s universe, but sadly that never worked out.
Onto the stuff less exciting but interesting nonetheless.
Although the game only got a couple updates over the course of three years (literally a couple, actually) and doesn’t feature any form of modding support (which has been requested since ror1), there have been times when Hopoo Games tried their best to do only the best for DEADBOLT. For one – the game’s console release on PS4/Vita and Nintendo Switch, attracting a new playerbase and allowing us to smash undead skulls whenever and wherever we please.
Another thing that shouldn’t be forgotten about is the fact that hopoo bit the bullet and recruited a moderator – a mostly silent observer, helping out on discussions, writing “Map of the Week” on a semi-regular basis, and currently writing this very New Year-special post.
Bet this game would be dead without one. :mw:
Heck, while I’m at it, I might as well mention Square_Rabbit – a MotW messiah (the posts wouldn’t be so flashy without him redacting stuff, lads), has the most hours on DEADBOLT (to my knowledge) and probably the one who’s done even more for the community than me. Oh, and he also has several WR speedruns, which is pretty cool.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NXUvvPUAd4
While we’ve moved away from the development topic anyway, it’s important to recall the game’s soundtrack – it’s got a Soundcloud release for all to hear and download, a stem album to remix and research and even a physical release in form of vinyl records with cool design and other nick-nacks!
And we definitely shouldn’t forget the Discord server that’s been running for over a year now and which has everything you could wish for: emotes, memes, complete lack of any seriousness and quick access to discussing all aspects of the game and its community!
Click here to join!
And… huh, that’s about it.
Although the community isn’t all that big and active, I’ve had an absolute blast moderating it for over a year at this point, helping people out in discussions, playing and reviewing people’s maps and just generally having a great time watching as this small community of ours prospers. Here’s to another year, hopefully even crazier than the previous ones!
Artwork by Nintee
Map of the Week #36
Hey everyone!
Another blast from the past today! This time we’re highlighting a map from someone who flipped the perception of DEADBOLT level creation as we knew it – kilozombie with his “Cassettes” campaign. This series also focuses on the past, retelling Ibzan’s descent from reaper to undead in the form of fragmented memories and scenarios. Ibzan’s past experiences and our Reaper’s own are smashed together in a chaotic mess (the good kind), with holes torn into floors, walls and ceilings. And reality itself, probably. Enemies can attack you from practically any angle here. There are also hidden cassettes in a few of the levels, providing some more backstory to those curious enough to look.
Without further ado, throw out any preconceptions you have about the laws of physics and let’s jump into the last map released in the campaign – “Devil”.
As mentioned above, each map is a mishmash of rooms scattered all over the place, like several buildings were crushed together. As you can tell from the screenshots, this one is no exception. After a short discussion, we get to reapin’ and creepin’ across the entirety of this rather large – and as such, rather stressful – map, with elements from vampire clubs, zombie apartment complexes and dredged docks and warehouses on the other. Every faction is present, so be prepared for anything.
Making a plan is key – the unconventional layout means you need to think about every move and pay attention to the surroundings more than ever, keeping an eye out for rips and tears in the walls. The large ventilation system allows for quick transportation through the level, allowing you to bypass some of the confusing layouts. As a bonus, there are several yellow shipping containers hiding weapons you can take advantage of.
After going up, down, and all around the level, brushing with death and maybe checking out that eye-catching cassette tape, we’re prompted to head down to the bottom of the map to pick a safe.
In previous mission in the Cassettes series, picking safes allowed the Reaper and Ibzan to freely converse with one another.
And yet, this time something’s… off.
Yup, we’re not done yet. The world is burning, and filled with skeletons and Madam Stelas (yes, Stelas, plural). Wherever there was a regular phylactery in the last section, now lies one of Stela’s phylacteries. And you need to destroy them all before any of the Stelas will stop reviving.
The layout is mostly the same as the first part, but this time it’s populated by Hellhounds, Grunts and Stelas, none of which drop any weapons on death. Ammo conservation is key here – the objective is to kill all undead, so make those shots count. You might have to resort to punching enemies to death if you’re careless. Thankfully, combat shotguns are littered rather generously through the map, and since Stela drops her shotgun when she dies for real, ammo becomes much more plentiful after you destroy all her bottles.
After thoroughly clearing the building, we’re finally able to reach a safe to pick, granting the Reaper and Ibzan a safe area to talk. The rest of the level purely focuses on narrative, and the both the characters and setting in Cassettes are very well told, giving more incentive to look for those hidden cassettes.
I remembered kilo’s campaign when looking for the next map to review, and oh golly it was such a joy to replay these levels again! While being the last in the series, it’s probably the least confusing of them overall and as such serves as a great introduction, letting you know what kind of surreal settings you should expect to explore in the other entries in the series.
In today’s MotW, I’d like to highlight a map from someone who was quite the active member of the community back in the day, regularly uploading maps of decent quality, along with finding loads of neat little tricks in the editor and whatnot. And while he seems to have mostly moved on from making custom maps, I think his maps have a place in history and deserve to be remembered.
Today under the spotlight is “Warehouse”, a part of the “Flatline” campaign by RPD_Survivor_842 (you’ll recognise him as RPD_Hunter_482 if you played most of his maps on release).
Most of the levels in Flatline are pretty linear (bear in mind that linearity is something pretty hard to effectively pull off in a game like DEADBOLT, which is usually defined by choice) – and this one’s no exception. Your objective’s a simple one, storm your way through a warehouse (you know, like the title says) filled with ash and undead. Burn the drugs, dispose of the inhabitants, and get out.
What I commend about this level in particular is its superb decoration, which is pleasant to look at with a nice variety in room themes without anything seeming out of place. This version of the map also lacks any enemies spawning out of nowhere to try and catch you off guard, an issue that it originally had but was thankfully patched out in an update a few months after its original release. Despite its linearity, there is some choice in how you take out some of the rooms, such as which side of the upper floor you attack first.
While being the second entry of the campaign, I think it’s a good place to introduce yourself to Flatline, as it leaves a good first impression. If you’re planning on playing more levels in the campaign, be wary that they tend to have a lot of exposition in cutscenes, along with occasional difficulty spikes and hard-to-notice traps.
After a small break, we’re back in action with another MotW.
Just in case you missed the last announcement: DEADBOLT is now available on the Nintendo Switch, meaning you can smash undead skulls on the go! Read the blogpost about the release here.
Sorry for the wait with this one, but the delay’s actually been worth it – this week’s highlighted map hadn’t actually been released until after the usual time! This week’s Map of the Week is “Limited Tinkering” by ColdBolt.
In my opinion, it was a bit of a waste that traps were only used in one of DEADBOLT’s levels (and I’m certain hopoo feels the same way), so it’s always great seeing a map that focuses on them, though the sheer amount of criss-crossing wires in this level is astonishing. Playing on Low graphics setting is recommended.
As you can probably tell from the screenshots and title, Limited Tinkering is a rehash of one of the original campaign levels, Timur the Tinkerer, in a similar vein to a few maps that have been covered here in the past. Of course, it’s deadlier than ever.
I’m pretty surprised we don’t get reimaginings of the original levels more often – revisiting familiar locations with a new spin on them is always interesting, and this felt like a breath of fresh air. I can basically do the original Timur level without even thinking, so getting caught off guard by the new trap layout made me feel like I was playing it for the first time again!
And oh golly, what fun it is! With traps plastered all over the place, this level turns into utter mayhem with endless trap triggering (mostly caused by enemies), corpses flying all over the place and... just things happening too rapidly to even have time to process.
One has to wonder if it's even possible to complete.
It’s not without issues, of course. The time limit made this a lot more stressful and felt unnecessary in a level where you’re meant to think things through, and the performance is pretty abysmal because of all the wires, although this is more on the game than the level itself. Despite these shortcomings, it’s still a fun, challenging and refreshing experience.
Perhaps even the most fun I've ever had completing a DEADBOLT level.
The flames roar to life, as more potential Reapers arrive to the Place.
Hey everyone!
Not so long ago (a few hours, in fact) DEADBOLT got released on Nintendo Switch - a popular destination for many indie games, and for a very good reason!
If you've ever felt like smashing zombie skulls on your way to studies or work, then now's your chance.
If you don't own a Switch or can't afford one - there's an alternative handheld version in the form of a PlayStation Vita release, which happened a while ago, but we didn't cover it here at the time. Whoops.
Watch the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uO-XL3T9Ug
