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The Movement of Heaven (4/17/2000)
by Chris Druckenmiller (a.k.a. Sven)

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"I wanna play it.  Right NOW!"

OK, OK already!

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INSTALLATION
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1 -- Unzip the files into your main Quake 2 directory.

2 -- Double click on one of the three .bat files "YSPQ-Easy,"
     "YSPQ-Medium" or "YSPQ-Hard" depending on your skill 
     preference.

3 -- Have a good time and send comments or questions to                cdrucken@digitalriver.com

=====================================
THE STORY
=====================================

The team of doctors discussing things in hushed voices, occasionally 
turning to look at you and shaking their heads does not lift your spirits.
	No matter how much you pester them to explain things, they seem
to ignore you.  One person in the room does acknowledge your existence,
however.  He's dressed in a light-colored business suit and carries a
dossier under his left arm.  With his right arm, he extends his hand to
shake yours.
	"Good day!  Name's Ed.  Ed Singleback, I'll be representing
you," he says, while shaking your hand with a weak grip.
	"Uh, hi," is all you manage to say.
	Ed Singleback shuffles through his papers a bit, smiling when
he comes across a photo of you from High School.
	"Joined the corps fresh out of HS, I see," he says.
	"Well, yeah, the recruiter-"
	"That eager to kill, eh?"
	"Um, I don't think I'd say."
	"Heh heh.  Don't worry, kid, I won't hold it against you.  I
see this kind of thing all the time."
	"What kind of thing?"
	You notice Ed Singleback is engrossed in his dossier again.  He
suddenly jerks his head up quickly, saying, "Hmm?  Oh, you know, youth
wasted by war and dreams of glory.  All that sappy crap."
	"Hey, I'm a soldier, and I was given-"
	"Yes, yes, you were given orders which you gleefully carried
out.  It's all right here."
	"What's all right where?  I mean, what's this all about?"
	"Oh, you don't know?"
	You shake your head.
	"I'm terribly sorry.  I thought you'd have figured it out by
now.  Don't worry, perfectly normal.  Hey, happens to thousands of
people every day.  It's the most natural thing."
	"What's the most natural thing?"
	"Well, death, of course," said Ed Singleback with the kind of
grin only a fool and his money could love.
	"Death?"
	"Death."
	"But, I can't-"
	"-Oh, yes you can!"
	"But, I didn't"
	"-Oh, yes you did!  You remember that last Gladiator strogg you
encountered.  The one with the railgun?"
	"But, I dodged it.  The slug just grazed-"
	"-your medulla oblongata, yes.  Unfortunately, it hit just
about everything else up there.  Those doctors over there are trying to
determine how to find out who you are because, woo boy!  Are you a
pretty sight with your brains all over the place!"
	"Well, what's all this about you representing me.  I mean, if I
didn't know any better, I'd say you were a lawyer."
	"Close.  I'm an angel of death.  But, let's stop talking
business for a moment.  Come on, I'll show you your new place for the
time being."
	Ed Singleback doesn't strike you as someone who's really
interested in helping people.  Whenever you try to tell him something
it takes great effort to get his attention on you instead of his
dossier.  Eventually, you reach a small cubicle room.
	"Well, here's your new home for now," he says.
	"For now?"
	"Yes, for now.  In just a couple days, if everything goes
right, you're being shipped off to Reincarnation City, where you can
have your choice of any life you want to live next."
	You swallow hard, and ask, "And, if everything goes badly?"
	Ed's horrible grin actually sank for a moment, only to be
replaced, amazingly enough, by an even more fake one.  "Well, kid,
we'll just try not to think about that.  Everything will turn out OK."
	"That's it!" You throw Ed against the wall, disappointed that
his grin hasn't flinched.  "Tell me what's going to happen if
everything doesn't work out.  NOW!"
	"Ahem," said Ed.  "Uh, well, you'll be taken to a different
place."
	"I'm listening."
	"And that place..."
	"Yes?"
	"Uh ... it's Zhong."
	If this had been some farcical melodrama, you would have heard
some over-the-top theme music after he said the word "Zhong."  However,
the word fails to impress you.
	"Go on," you say.
	"Well, according to Taoism, the universe is held together by
various forces.  Those forces are in constant struggle against and with
each other.  And, well, sometimes they need dead people to act out
these struggles."
	"Sounds fun."
	"Uh, not from what I've heard.  But, it gets worse.  See, in
addition to humans, many Strogg have died in this war.  Because of our
contact with them, they've developed a way to exist with us in our own
afterlives..."
	"Afterlives?  There's more than one?"
	"Oh, come on.  You don't seriously believe there's just one
afterlife, do you?  Well, there is, and you've gone to the Taoist
afterlife.  Unfortunately, the Strogg feel this is a very influential
dimension and are trying to take it over."
	"What have I got to do with it?"
	"The powers that be have been sending a lot of dead soldiers in
to fight the dead strogg.  If you go, and I'm sure that's not a
concern, you'll be one of those soldiers.  You'll either defeat the
Strogg and return balance to the universe or your soul will be lost."
	You finally let Ed Singleback go.  He straightens his tie and
adds more starch to his smile.
	"All right," he says.  "So, you see, it's all good.  You won't
really have to worry about going to Zhong because everything's going
to go just smoothly tomorrow."
	The next day everything doesn't go smoothly, and you knock out
two of Ed Singleback's ethereal teeth.

=====================================
CREDITS
=====================================
Story:                   Chris Druckenmiller
Level Design:            Chris Druckenmiller
Game Engine:             Quake 2 by ID Software
Level Editor:            QuArK (http://www.planetquake.com/quark)
Makeup:                  Chris Druckenmiller
Mr. Druckenmiller's
Wardrobe provided by:    Target.
The word:                A bird
Voice of Ed Singleback:  Chris Druckenmiller
Female voice:	         Amazon
Play testers:            Pappy (not related to Pappy-R)
                         Jay "Animal" Aiken 
                         Brendon "Citizen Abel" Cheung
		         Philfox
		         D.A.D.
System(s):     Most work done on a Micron Millennia Mme, 200Mhz MMX,  
               32mb of RAM (now upgraded to 96) and VooDoo 3 2000 3D 
               card, Windows '98.  Some work done on a Dexus machine, 
               300Mhz PII MMX, 256 mb of ram, NO video card :( and 
               Windows NT (only on my lunch break, boss!)
Build Time:    From concept to what I have so far = approximately 6
               months.  Part of that time was spent learning how to
               design levels.

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GAME TYPES SUPPORTED
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Difficulty settings:    Yes
Deathmatch:		Yes
Cooperative:		No


=====================================
SPECIAL THANKS
=====================================

To my girlfriend Dove for being very, very, VERY patient with me 
when this level design thing turned her into a computer widow :). 
Actually, she's been more than just patient, she's helped me work
through some problems I've had along the way making these levels
(problems with the levels, not personal problems).  That's why 
her name also goes here:

=====================================
COLLABORATORS
=====================================

My girlfriend Dove.

=====================================
NAZI COLLABORATORS
=====================================

Johnathan Swift (only my best friends may get this one).

=====================================
Inspiration
=====================================

J.F. Gustafsson -- This guy is the reason I got into designing my own
levels.  I enjoyed both his Age of Panic and 1964 Quake 2 Units very
much and learned a few things about making challenging single player 
games.

Brendon "Citizen Abel" Chung -- He wrote back to me the very next 
day when I sent him an email saying how much I liked his maps.  
Seems like a decent fellow, and he can write a good story, too.  
I can only guess he's play testing these maps as I write this, 
since he said he would :).

Dove -- She's the one who's really been into the I Ching and 
Feng Shui lately.  Because of that, I came up with the idea for 
using that as a theme.

Big Trouble in Little China -- Kurt Russell's finest role. 

Myst and Riven -- Especially evident in the Chen level.  I forsee
a day when we'll have an intense, puzzle-solving game with breathtaking
scenery just like what you see in those games but with full movement
like today's 3D shoot-em-up.  Single player missions are just the first step.

=====================================
NOTES ON THE MISSION
=====================================

The whole occult thing has been done to death in ID software 
games.  Everything now has a gothic or satanic look to it.  As 
far as I'm concerned, the whole skull and crossbones look to 
maps has gotten a little played-out.  Also, it's getting harder
and harder to make unique-looking stuff for Quake2.

So, why not theme the map after a different view of death?  So, 
I chose Taoism.  Rather than fighting through a European idea 
of hell, you could fight through an Aisian one.  The rest is 
now history (if you can call 6 months history, that is).

The I Ching and all the symbolism that goes with it were central 
to the themes in each map:

=====================================
Zhong.  The Central Realm.
=====================================

The name pretty much says it for this one.  Indeed, the names 
say it for just about every realm.  Zhong is the center, or 
Earth or anything that is everything.  It's the beginning, the 
end, the middle, the second-to-last...

This is where you have the doors to the various realms of Metal, 
Fire, Water and Wood.  These realms are all based on the 
corresponding trigrams on the I Ching.

Of course, there are actually eight total trigrams on the I 
Ching.  So, where are the other four realms?

I'M GETTING TO IT, OK!!!  :)

=====================================
Tui.  The Metal Realm.
=====================================

A few of you out there (a VERY few of you) may remember my 
first ever offering to Quake2 SP titled "Tui.  Metal."  A couple 
of map reviewers got ahold of it and published great things 
about it like "...goes to prove that 9-year-olds whith knowledge 
of 3 Ninjas moves are not qualified to design levels for 
Quake2," and "Sorry, Sven, but single player has to be more 
than that."

That first map was supposed to be the first level of this mission, 
but I scrapped the whole thing because, well, it BLEW.  The map 
that takes its place is a refurbished DM map of my own.  It 
looks a hell of a lot nicer and the playability is much better, too.

One thing you'll notice in this map is it has a small area 
with a pipe full of water.  This is part of the symbolism of 
the whole mission: each realm has a piece of the other realms in 
it.  Just as in the yinyang, each side has a piece of the 
other in it.  The next realm is water, so the metal realm has 
a little water in it.

Get it?

=====================================
K'an.  The Water Realm.
=====================================

In this level you'll find lots and lots of water.  But, the 
water in this level doesn't behave like normal water.  It can 
stand on its own, a trick I'm taking from The Abyss.  
Remember the cool-looking water tentacle in that movie?  
Well, that's the image I tried to envoke in this level.

This level also has a piece of the next level.  Pay close 
attention to the rooftop you end up at and how the big, square 
air ducts are located with a soldier behind just about every 
one.  It helps set the theme for the next level.

=====================================
Chen.  The Wood Realm.
=====================================

This level does get a little heavy on the r_speeds in a couple 
of places, but that's the price you someties pay for innovation.  
I've used some Quake1 textures here to make wooden tree trunks 
for this forest scene.  I've worked and worked at making a playable
forest scene because the Q2 engine doesn't do it that well.  Still,
I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.

I also set the scene for this being the final resting place of 
Sun Tzu, author of The Art of War.  He has a small cabin 
nestled into this tranquil forest setting.

The underground area in this level foreshadows the next one, 
The Fire Realm.

=====================================
Li.  The Fire Realm.
=====================================

The monsters are far between in this one, but they are all very 
strong and a lot of them are beast-like.  In addition to fire, the
Li trigram represents most things that are animal like.  I also 
tried to work in a dragon theme here.

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THANKS FOR PLAYING!
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Hope you enjoy this offering, and let me know if you do.  Send 
comments to cdrucken@digitalriver.com.  If people like it enough, 
I may actually make the sequal and include the other four realms.

- Sven