"Somnolence"

"Somnolence" was my first decent level. It was very fun to create, and had the best atmosphere of any of my prior designs. It was also the first Jedi Knight Arena level that I had attempted. Jedi Knight Arena is a mod that was made for JK, allowing Unreal Tournament style one-on-one championships. A contestant would stay in the ring until a cycle of other players could end his winning streak, sort of like a modified last man standing.











"Somnolence" has also yet to be released, mainly due to some annoying glitches with the JKA mod, although it still remains one of my favorite levels.

The New "Proelium"

Having scrapped my original Proelium capture the flag level back in 2003, the next year I decided to finally release something: a small, death match remake of the same name.

I added music, new door and elevator 3dos, and experimented with a tie bomber that flew overhead at random, dropping bombs on unsuspecting players. I also had a random powerup in the middle, which enticed players out of the safe hallways and into the open.


The level was pretty basic though, and because of its tiny size, didn't have particularly good replay value. I was just glad that I had finally released something.

Fort Knox

During a period of Bond obsession, I decided to try and make a version of Fort Knox from Goldfinger. I had originally planned the perimeter fence, the broken door where the baddies cut through with a laser, the trucks and helicopter, and even the massive gold vault inside.

I didn't make it very far into the level, but it was a fun base. Since then, Fort Knox has been recreated for the Bond game Nightfire, a far better version than anything I could do.

Another CTF Level - "Aqua"

Here is another level I created, back in 2004, which also won me my second Screen of the Day at Massassi. It's a Capture the Flag level called Aqua, based around an abandoned Gungan Temple that the Empire has since turned into an underwater base on Naboo. This premise explains the really colorful center-piece to the level and then all the synthetic/metallic structures built up around it.
I was originally going to have an underwater reef section with a hidden conc rifle, but sadly that was never built. This level was the first that really started to evolve from my standard, simple architecture into something a bit more diverse and imaginative. But I still had a long way to go.

An Experimental Level

To improve my level design skills, I attempted smaller projects or single rooms, and tried to see what Jedi Knight was capable of. In one experiment, the beginning of a Single Player level, I designed a "fake" reflective surface for the hangar bay.
In order to get the effect, I simply had to create twice as many sectors, and make the floor translucent. Unfortunately, it's impossible to get reflections of moving characters in Jedi Knight, so the effect is slightly ruined. It also wouldn't be very good on framerate or very economical with game design, since you're building twice as much eye candy as you really need. ;-)

The Original "Proelium"

After editing for several months, I finally came up with something worth showcasing on Massassi. Proelium, as it was called, was a CTF map with jump-pads, scalding hot mercury pools, and huge conveyor belts that allowed a good player to bring the enemy flagbot back to base in seconds. This level was also my first SotD (Screen of the Day) at Massassi.


I still had a lot of lessons to learn in editing though. Since I was so new to editing, the level design was poor and eventually had to be scrapped because of too many errors and really bad gameplay. Ah well, back to the ol' drawing board. :-)

My First Attempts at Editing

Just a note before I continue: all of the levels I will be showing on this blog were designed in a freeware utility called JED, which is available for download at both The Massassi Temple and The JK Editing Hub. The program has a steep learning curve, but it is quite powerful once you get the hang of it.

These are some shots from the first "real" level I actually attempted (way back in spring of 2003), a single-player series called Brotherhood of Maw. I had originally planned a trilogy, but I never even got half-way through the first level. Typical of ambitious projects.

Looking back, it's just as well I stopped, because I would've been wasting my time - the level was terrible, and I had a long way to go before I was capable of something worthy of releasing.

What This Blog's About

Hello everyone (or perhaps no one in particular)! This blog, if you could call it that, is merely a collection of all my level editings for a nine year old game called Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight. I have been editing the game as a hobby on and off since 2003, and have developed to the point where I actually have something to show for it. I have attempted a wide variety of levels and ideas, many of which remain unfinished, and some of which I am quite proud of. In the following posts I will be updating anyone who's interested on my past and current progress and sharing some of my ideas, inspiration, and background at the same time. I don't promise anything too elaborate, but for anyone who's ever been a fan of Star Wars, computer games, CG environments, or even architecture, it should be interesting, so stay tuned!