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Title                 : Childe Nukem to the Darke Tower Came...
Filename              : Childe.map

Author                : Robbie Langton
E-mail                : Robbie@roblang.demon.co.uk
Web Page              : http://www.roblang.demon.co.uk/dukesolo/index.html
                        A website devoted to level maps for the solo game

Misc. Author Info     : Robbie Langton of Derby, UK. - writer, composer, website designer
                        and general layabout! A lot older than you'd think, but nowhere
                        near as old as I look... 

Other Levels          : Among others are Relaxpad, Henge Six, Heptobol and AlCarib.

Description           : Duke starts on a very dark night upon rocky, windswept
                        moorland, and eventually finds a sinister mediaeval tower. 
                        It is, of course, haunted, apart from anything else.
                        It also contains portals through which we enter new
                        towers and different time zones, ending in a space
                        station. Or you can go down to the dungeons. 
                        Puzzles abound, and there are some decidedly hairy
                        situations in which Duke finds himself, before 
                        eventually reaching that big exit button.

Additional Credits To : Adam Richards, for dying nobly in a very good
                        cause. Without his play testing and additional
                        ideas, it wouldn't be half the level it is.
                          
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* Play Information *

Episode and Level #    : Stand alone map.
Single Player          : Yes. It was specifically designed for the
                         single player. 
DukeMatch 2-8 Player   : No
Cooperative 2-8 Player : No
Difficulty Settings    : Difficult enough as it is - (ask Adam!)
Plutonium Pak Required : Yes
New Art                : No - finding new ways to use the existing
                         sprites and textures is half the fun!
New Music              : Yes - optional:
                         A file called Dethtoll.mid is included. This
                         contains my own composition, intended to 
                         help create the mediaeval feel of the level. 
                         Copy this into your main Duke directory (first
                         removing any other Dethtoll.mid variants that
                         you may have there), and it will be played.
New Sound Effects      : No
New .CON Files         : No
Demos Replaced         : No

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* Construction *

Base                   : New level from scratch
Level Editor(s) Used   : BUILD
Art Editor(s) Used     : None
Construction Time      : If you can remember, you didn't spend enough
                         time on it! It took something like a week's
                         intensive work, with quite a few other hours
                         perfecting it,
Known Bugs/Problems    : None known, except a tendency of the Space Station Boss's
                         head to come through the corridor floor occasionally. This
                         seems to be a problem with the game engine and is nothing 
                         I can fix. 

* Where to get this MAP file *

File location          : http://www.roblang.demon.co.uk/dukesolo/index.html, 
                         plus anywhere else it has been copied to. 

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*Important Information*

Installation           : Just copy the map into the Duke directory and
                         play as normal for a user map. If you want the
                         special music, copy the Dethtoll.mid file to there 
                         also (see note above).

Important Notes        : I find I need a theme to build a Duke level
                         around. In this case it was "Thrones and Towers".
                         There are areas of the map you can't get into, 
                         needed to create the illusion of landscape
                         extending into the distance, but anything that
                         looks like a door is indeed a door and there 
                         will be some way to open it. (Actually, there 
                         two exceptions to that - the magic portals in the
                         first tower - you'll see what I mean when you get
                         there. They don't open, but they do take you places.)

                         I hope you enjoy the level. Play it in good health!
                         (It was mainly written by me as occupational
                         therapy during a bad attack of sciatica, so I 
                         mean that most sincerely!)

By a most curious coincidence, in the middle of my writing this level about towers
the WTC Twin Towers in New York were attacked. My heart goes out to all those who 
suffered as a result of that despicable atrocity. Let's hope the spirit of 
Duke Nukem inspires those charged with the task of bringing to book the monsters
who were responsible for that vile crime against humanity. 

This may make one ponder for a moment about the validity of playing games like Duke
Nukem in moral and psychological terms. Personally I find no difficulty with this. 
Although Duke may seem to be glorifying violence, it is a cartoon violence - and 
Duke is the only remotely "real" person in it. He is the Jerry to the Moggie-guards' Tom. 
But cartoon violence or not, it is still violence, When I am playing Duke I am setting
out to kill things. How am I affected by this? Does it make me more likely to commit
real acts of violence in the real world? Does it make me callous about acts of
violence in the real world?

I think it does neither. For one thing, the game is cathartic. We all have our dark sides,
our ingrained hunter instincts. Being civilised means learning to control those. 
By playing Duke I am burning off those dark urges. I am ridding myself of those frustrations
which inevitably build up inside oneself. I'm getting an adrenalin kick in complete
safety and in a way which involves no harm to others. And if I don't learn to control
that adrenalin, I will fail in playing the game.  I believe that at the end of a session
in Duke-world, I am far less likely to be anti-social in the real world. I've got it out
of my system. 

As for making me callous - I don't think it does that either. Maybe it even has the opposite
effect. Although I will throw a pipe bomb gleefully at a crowd of pig-cops and chortle
as their body parts explode all over the landscape, in the real world the thought of
some terrorists using pipe bombs against real people (as they do in Northern Ireland) fills
me with extreme horror. Maybe that is because playing out the effects of such an action
in the unreality of Duke-land gives me a greater understanding of how terrible such an
action would really be when translated into actuality.

So, although I can sympathise with the misgivings some people may have about shoot-em-up
games - and in the case of those which give realistic representations of other human
beings as targets I may have some misgivings myself - in the case of Duke Nukem I do not
have any worries. Which is why I was able to go on working at preparing this map, while
truly horrific things were going on in the real world outside of my computer. 

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