Year of the Snake

Completion date: 25 April 2001

Description:

Year of the Snake is a fairly small level (131 cubes), although quite wide open
in most places. This lets you sweep halls and rooms quite easily. It's not
impossible to dodge, but substantially more so than usual, making it quite a
fast playing level.

The weapon balance is exactly that, balance, and therefore somewhat unusual.
There are three of just about everything - three sets of lasers (3 laser boost +
1 quad laser), three Vulcan cannons (with two ammo clips each), three Spreadfire
cannons, three Plasma, three Fusion and three Smart missiles. The Fusions and
Smart missiles are all hidden, some better than others.

The level is designed for 2 or 3 players, although it would handle 4. I'm not so
sure about any more than that though. The scheme is more or less green and brown
with a few variations here and there. I only have a robot in the level to make a
scene reminiscent of the Descent 1 Anniversary edition cover. There's also an
exit sequence, in case you're one of the people that really care for those.

History:

I'm now on my third attempt to write this thing. The other machine somehow
objected to my saving files with Notepad. I'm not really sure why. Anyway, YotS
started, or was destined to start, much to the surprise of the unsuspecting
author (oh well, I'll admit I never really thought about it), with the Descentia
2001 level contest. I always thought the title funny, as Descentia used to be
the name of a fairly respectable website which doesn't seem to exist anymore.
I'm probably wrong, as usual.

I originally was going to enter for Descent 2, but to turn a long story into a
long sentence, although I already had a level that fit the requirements (D2
levels needed an Earthshaker, D3 levels a Black Shark. As you could expect,
there was much whining about this on the Descent BB), I realized that it
actually didn't quite fit the requirements, and was in a level set anyway,
through thought processes and ideas no longer known to me I decided to enter for
D1 instead, with a level that became YotS.

The first draft of the level, if you like, was completed after a few hours on a
Sunday night. It was tested rather soon after that, and after three or so such
tests between myself, KenH, DarkHorse and Xena (although never all in the same
game - I just thought you needed to know), Ken gave me an insignificantly
massive number of requests for the level. Most of these were implemented while I
was playing it with him, except the 'notorious' ladder hallway and the third
smart missile secret. Those two points were somewhat overly disputed, although I
think I can get away with saying that I stayed out of the ensuing scrap. ;)

We tested the level something like nine or ten times, which may seem entirely
too many but it didn't exactly hurt. It didn't vaguely hurt either. In the
process, several things that were done incorrectly, should also have been
included, were nifty additions or just looked funny were changed. KenH now seems
to think the levels absolutely perfect, and would probably kill you if you
didn't agree that it's absolute rox0rness incarnate or something to that effect.
If I'm wrong, he'll probably kill me for writing this.

- Sirius, author

Special thanks:
KenH
DarkHorse
Xena

No thanks:
Myself.

;P

-------------------------
Planet Descent is at http://www.planetdescent.com (yeah, I didn't think it'd be
at www.microsoft.com/sux0rs/PD either)
KenH's homepage: http://www.hughes.net/~kenh
My homepage (at the time of writing): http://povterminal.homestead.com
DarkHorse's homepage (as above): http://www.descent-3.com/leadworx
Xena's homepage: None yet

E-mail: On my website. sirius@summoner.org