| Night-DM
Night DeathMatch v0.90
1) Introduction During our development of the Quake2 mod Night Hunters, we often discussed how much fun it might be to re-play the single player game in the dark. After version 1.5 of Night Hunters was released I found some time on my hands and the urge to do something "fun" again (not that Night Hunters wasn't fun, just a lot of debugging work near the end). Initially, I began playing with something I called the "Kitchen Sink" mod. It was intended to test everything I'd ever wanted to try in Q2 DLL programming. Once I'd moved and reorganized the core pieces of Night Hunters into Kitchen Sink, I began constructing a basic Night single player mod. Not long after I started coding the single player game, it ocurred to me: why stop there? And so the Night DeathMatch mod was created. Night DeathMatch really contains three "games". You can play the single player game, deathmatch, or coop deathmatch. All are "night" games. That is, they are played in the dark. There is NO light in these games. Anyone familiar with the Night Hunters mod will know what I'm talking about. If you're not familiar with NH, well, be prepared for something a little different. 1.1) Disclaimer This is version 0.90 of Night DeathMatch. That means it's a beta. I think it's a pretty good beta, functionally speaking, but I haven't taken the time to heavily test it or polish some of the rough edges. If this mod appears to be popular, I'll take the time. If not, well, that's ok too. If you find any problems in Night DeathMatch, please contact me or BatMax. We appreciate it. 2) Installing Night DM This is a beta release, so there are no bells and whistles. Installation is pretty simple and straightforward. Just take the DLL (or shared library for Linux) and put it in a seperate folder (or directory). You can launch the game as any other mod using the "+set game" option, as in: quake2.exe +set game nightdm That's all there is to it.
3) Game Overview 3.1) Night Game Mechanics The first thing a new player will notice is that these games are dark. Very dark. "Is my @#$^^$#%$ monitor broken?" dark. It's not as bad as it looks (or rather, doesn't look). You can navigate around a level using what little light sources there are (sky, water, lava, etc). But that will lead to lots of stumbling around and cursing as you realize you've been running in a corner for the last 5 minutes. 3.1.1) Flashlights To help you out we provide a few tools. The first is a flashlight. This will illuminate an area in front of you and is quite usefull for navigation and finding targets. 3.1.2) Flares To light up an area without attracting unwanted attention, we also provide flares. Flares are tossed like grenades and will light up an area for a short period of time. They even do a little bit of damage if you manage to bean one of your buddies. In the single player game, you will receive a set number of flares per level. In deathmatch, you will receive a set number per respawn. You can't pick up flares, so use them well. 3.1.3) IR Goggles Sometimes you just want to lay some ordinance on a buddy and you just don't have time to fool with flares or flashlights. For that we provide IR goggles. In Night DM, the quad damage and invulnerability runes have been replaced with IR goggles. The IR goggles will cause all the bad guys to glow for a short period of time thus making them frag-friendly. 3.1.4) Lightning Finally, we've added a little light and sound show to the mod. Periodically,
there will be a "lightning" flash which will briefly light up the area
(brief as in a few seconds. But you can see a LOT in a few seconds). This
adds a little of the "oh #$%$#! I'm right next to a guy with a rail gu<BLAM>!"
kind of suspense to the whole thing.
3.2) Single Player Game The single player game works just like the original black-challenged version. There's you. There's monsters. The monsters don't like you. You're not really fond of them. 3.2.1) Single Player Commands There are several new commands for the single player game. They are: flashlight: Toggle your flashlight beam.
3.2.2) Single Player Options 3.2.2.1) Flashlight The flashlight comes in two flavors: large and small. The large flashlight emits a green light and covers a lot of ground. The small flashlight emits a white light and covers a much smaller area. You can change this option at any time, but the flashlight beam will not actually change until you turn it off then on again. 3.2.2.2) Flares This determines the number of flares per game level. You can change this number at any time and the number of flares in your inventory will change immediately. 3.2.2.3) Lightning When enabled, the light and sound show is turned on. Lightning events will occur at random periods from then on. 3.2.3.4) Smart Monsters By default, some of the monsters in the game will not see the player until some sound is made (i.e. you fire) or some light falls on him/her (i.e. from a flare). If the Smart Monsters option is enabled, then most monsters will "see" in the dark. This makes for a slightly more difficult game. 3.2.2.5) IR If this is disabled, the quad damage and invulnerability runes will behave normally (boo!). If enabled, the quad damage and invulnerability will behave as IR goggles. This can be changed at any time. 3.2.3) Saving You can save a single player game of Night DeathMatch. Your flashlight
type, flare count, etc will all be saved from one session to another.
3.3) DeathMatch Game Again, this is pretty much like the normal deathmatch. You. Lot's of
hostile, 'leet, KeWL DoODz armed with an attitude, bad grammar, and rocket
3.3.1) DeathMatch Commands There are several new commands for the single player game. They are: flashlight: Toggle your flashlight beam.
3.3.2) DeathMatch Options 3.3.2.1) Flashlight The flashlight comes in two flavors: large and small. The large flashlight emits a green light and covers a lot of ground. The small flashlight emits a white light and covers a much smaller area. You can change this option at any time, but the flashlight beam will not actually change until you turn it off then on again. 3.3.2.2) Flares This determines the number of flares per game level. You can change this number at any time and the number of flares in your inventory will change immediately. 3.3.2.3) Lightning When enabled, the light and sound show is turned on. Lightning events will occur at random periods from then on. 3.3.2.4) IR If this is disabled, the quad damage and invulnerability runes will
behave normally (boo!). If enabled, the quad damage and invulnerability
will behave as IR goggles. This can be changed at any time.
4) Comments That's it. I hope you enjoy the game at least. It's probably a better waste of hard drive space than those naughty pictures you've been downloading, anyway. If you find a bug, or you have a suggestion, let me or BatMax know. DingBat
BatMax
5) Known Problems - Anyone can change the options in the middle of a deathmatch.
You can download the files from the Download
page.
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