Towne

Fat Controller has finally released Rc3: Towne, following on the excellent Rc2: Swamp. Towne is undeniably in the 'Village' style pioneered by Steve Rescoe with his classic maps Village of Dread and Shadow Over Innsmouth. This is one of my favourite styles of map.

Towne begins in a basement, with an excellent story - one of the best I've read for a Quake level - setting the scene. This basement is very detailed, as are all of the interior settings in this map. Textures from Hexen II have been well used, as well as bookshelf textures from Quake's mission packs, giving the indoor areas a sense of feel - not just empty rooms with monsters in them. As well, trigger_multiples have been used to give messages in some cases, not to advance the gameplay but to advance the feel of place.

Outside you'll find a distinct nighttime town setting, with very well executed architecture. The sloping ground and large open areas of the older Village maps has been abandoned in favour of a much more orderly layout. Houses are set into alleys and walls in a nice looking and very polished manner; the steeply sloping roof angles give a feel of sharpness to the map. Brick textures have been used, but these are the colourful-washed bricks more remniscent of The Nameless City than of previous Village maps. There are several Roman touches, including the final temple room, but while these provide a little flair, this is not a Roman map. About the only thing I can find wrong with any of the visuals is the roofing on some of the houses is quite bright, and sticks out. All in all, a map which takes a previous theme and adds enough to keep it interesting, with excellent technical quality and attention to detail.

Gameplay is no less well executed; close combat with knights indoors and in alleyways will make players jump (much like the knights in Village of Dread's attic), while longer ranged fights with Ogres provide some variation. Supplies are adequate all through the map, but it's still a challenge. All in all, Towne is a damn good level.

After such a long time in the making, it's great to finally play Fatty's Towne. It was a level I had quite been looking forward to, as there haven't really been many village maps in a long time - since Rescoe's couple and Manke's Alba. Towne is alot more populated that both of those, with the entire map being houses and buildings apart from a small wharf near the start which was taken out of Fatty's previous map, Swamp. It would have been better if there were a few more set-peices for the player to remember the map by. Gameplay was great fun, with a good fairly tough ending, although not as challenging as some. Personally I wasn't expecting the map to end so suddenly, there didn't seem to be a build up to it. Maybe I was just didn't want it to end.