iamrealbuilder

[iamrealbuilder]

Bill Buchalter interview

Bill Buchalter was a level designer for Sunstorm Interactive. He’s worked on 3 official add-on of Build Engine games: Cryptic Passage for Blood, Suckin’ Grits On Route 66 for Redneck Rampage, Caribbean Life for Duke Nukem 3D. Interview, November 2020: Corentin: Can you introduce yourself?

Bill Buchalter: My name is Bill Buchalter. I’m an avid gamer of all kinds – video games, board games, and especially tabletop RPGs. I’m currently a freelance writer for AAW Games (Adventure A Week Games) writing mini adventures for Dungeons & Dragons 5E. I live outside Indianapolis, IN with my wife Jane, our three kids, and our dog Roxi. When I’m not gaming, I also enjoy music, playing guitar, hiking, and camping.

C: With Sunstorm Interactive, you're credited for level design on Cryptic Passage, Caribbean Life and Route 66. How did you start working with Sunstorm and what do you remember from that time?

BB: In the mid 90’s, maybe around 1995 or 96, I was very into playing Duke Nukem 3D. Like most PC gamers at the time, I had played Castle Wolfenstein and Doom, and Duke Nukem just blew me away. Back in those days, when we played online, we would use a 3rd party program called KALI. You dialed up on your modem, logged onto the internet, and then used KALI as a portal to chat with other gamers and find someone to play with. The KALI software would then allow you to network together over the internet and play PVP matches. It was crude, and the lag could be horrible, but we didn’t know any better at the time and we loved it!

I remember I was in a B. Dalton bookstore in the mall one day (another relic of the 90’s that is long gone!) when I found a book called the “Duke Nukem 3D Level Design Handbook”. I was intrigued, and as I flipped through the pages it talked about a program on the Duke Nukem CD called Build, which allowed you to create your own levels. I had no idea Build existed, let alone how to use it. I bought the book and spent the next couple weeks diving into learning how to use Build. I was hooked!

Making my own maps quickly became an obsession. I would share them with my friends on KALI and I quickly earned a reputation for making user maps. I remember there was a map building competition, but I don’t recall who sponsored it. A guy named Robert Travis won the competition. When I saw his maps, I was blown away! His designs were so much more advanced than mine. He was using tricks I had never thought of to get lighting effects and set moods. I had to reach out to him to pick his brain.

Robert responded and we began talking and quickly figured out that we both lived in Indianapolis. He was working for Sunstorm at the time and invited me to come to their office to discuss level design. I met him there one evening, and he showed me some of the stuff he was working on. We ended up playing Duke all night on Sunstorm’s network with some of the other guys in the office. I was in heaven!

Robert introduced me to Anthony Campiti, the lead producer on Sunstorm’s next project – Cryptic Passage, an add-on for a Build engine game called Blood. They invited me to design some levels for the game and I jumped at the chance. Robert assigned me to design an opera house level and immediately I got pictures in my head of the theater scenes from Interview with a Vampire. I went home and worked furiously on designing the level. I was still rough, but with Robert’s help I tweaked things here and there and slowly learned his techniques. In the end I was really pleased with the level I’d designed. Robert and Anthony were happy too and asked me to design a second map specifically for deathmatch.

The next project Sunstorm was working on was Suckin’ Grits on Route 66, an add-on for another Build engine game called Redneck Rampage. Robert again asked if I’d like to be a part of that team and assigned me to build a truck stop level. Using a lot of the things I’d learned on Cryptic Passage, and the campy feel of the Redneck Rampage game, I had a lot of fun designing that level.

The last project I worked on for Sunstorm was Duke Nukem Caribbean Vacation. By this time Duke’s popularity was beginning to wane, and Quake was taking over. Robert was already starting to experiment and learn how to use the Quake engine. I was a new dad at the time (my first daughter had just been born) so unfortunately, I didn’t have the spare time to devote to learning a new engine. I barely had the time to design my level for Duke Caribbean, but I did manage to finish the casino level for that project. I do recall that Robert ended up going through in the end and changing a lot of the aspects of my level to fit the theme they had in mind. I remember being a bit disappointed and not really feeling like the level was “mine” because of so many of the changes. It was the last project I worked on for Sunstorm.

I kept in touch with Robert and Anthony for a while after that. They were branching out, working on other projects, and even trying to develop their own FPS game that I don’t think ever really got off the ground. Sunstorm was having the most success with their Deer Hunter line of games that at the time were selling well in Wal-Mart. Sadly, I eventually just lost touch with those guys.

I’m sure this is WAY more information than you were wanting (I’m a writer… I can’t help but go off the deep end!) but you dusted off some fond, old memories for me, so I apologize for walking so far down memory lane!

C: I see that you're still making maps, different kind of maps! This makes me wonder if maybe you were involved with W!Zone (a pack of maps for Warcraft 2 released by Sunstorm). Can you tell us a bit about that if possible?

BB: I didn’t have any hand in the W!Zone project for Sunstorm, but I loved the Warcraft series. As was common for many video gamers like me, who had roots in fantasy games like D&D, I played a lot of Warcraft and eventually got sucked into the world of MMOs with Ultima Online, Everquest, and World of Warcraft! If only I had back the time I sunk into those games!

These days I’m exclusively writing and designing for Dungeons and Dragons. I started about ten years ago writing for D&D Organized Play in a campaign called Living Forgotten Realms. I co-authored two adventures for that with my good friend, Michael Pearman, and authored a third adventure on my own. As you know from tracking me down via AAW Games, I’ve now authored six adventures for them, five of which are already published and one that is still in the works but should be released soon.

When I do manage to find time for video games, Diablo III is my game of choice these days. I’m looking forward to Season 22 starting here shortly, and like many others, I’m really hoping for something great with Diablo IV. I’ve been a huge fan of the series since the beginning, and even wrote an entire campaign for D&D 5E that translated the story of Diablo III into Dungeons and Dragons for the players in my home game! Thanks again for the opportunity to share some of this history. It was fun putting it all down and reliving those days!

C: There are two signatures in the Truck Stop level for Route 66. Do you remember anything about that ? There also several levels with no known credit : Fun Park, House of ill Repute, Mystery Dino Cave, Bigfoot Convention.

The signature on the truck stop is Route 66 was a joke! I was the only designer on that one. I just signed it "Billy Joe Jim Bob Buchalter" as a joke for bad redneck name. I wasn't the kind of guy that had to sign my maps the EXACT same way every time. :)

Other than the truck stop, I don't recall designing any other maps for Route 66. I pretty sure none of those you listed below were mine, but I don't recall whose they were.

Finally, here are some final comments Bill made after reading through some forum posts:

Wow, I am really quite humbled that you guys looked so deeply into my work! The fact that you could recognize my build style is pretty cool - I didn't even know I had a style! LOL. The truth be told, the reason you probably had so much trouble telling my levels from Robert's is because he was a big influence on me. I learned a lot from him and incorporated a lot of that into the stuff I built.

Its funny how reading through that thread you linked brought back memories... I remember now that my biggest disappointment from Duke Caribbean was that my only level in the game ended up being a secret level - that some people wouldn't even find it or ever play it. I was actually pretty excited about that level. I was the one that suggested a casino because my folks had retired to Vegas, so I'd been in a lot of the casinos there and had some great ideas for the map. I'd forgotten all about the restaurant I worked into it, and the big fish tanks.

There seems to be some debate about Robert. From what I remember, he was a really good guy. Maybe a bit tough to work for, but only because he really strived for our designs to be the best they could be, and he demanded that of both himself and the other designers. As I said before, I learned early on to accept criticism and critique and not take it personally. It was just Robert doing his job. I'll be the first to admit that I designed better levels thanks to the stuff I learned from Robert.

Someone on the message board made a very astute comment, basically to the effect that "Bill had to have other work out there. Sunstorm wouldn't hire an unproven guy off the street." But truth be told, that's exactly what they did! I hadn't done a single thing before working there. But I think a few things played in my favor. First, I lived in Indy, just 15 minutes from their office, so it was easy for me to go in and work directly with Robert. Second, while I didn't have anything officially published, I did have a disk full of the maps I'd designed on my own, and Robert thought I showed promise. I would design at home a lot, then go into the office a couple times a week and sit with Robert while he critiqued my work and offered advice on how to improve it.

I'll be honest - I'm blown away at the number of people STILL playing these old maps we made so many years ago. I watched a couple YouTube videos of a guy playing and reviewing Duke Caribbean and Blood Cryptic Passage. His high praise of both Full House and the Opera House really made my day. It's nice to know that people enjoyed my work.

_____________________________

Thanks a lot to Bill Buchalter for taking the time to answer these questions! Thanks also for sharing... “Big City” !

A Duke Nukem 3D map he created back in the day before joining with Sunstorm Interactive which was never released before! Screenshot:

Map download:

https://msdn.duke4.net/bigcity.zip

______

External link: Duke4 forum blog megathread: https://forums.duke4.net/topic/11471-blog-interviews-of-build-engine-video-games-developers/page__pid__353013#entry353013 The forum posts Bill read, mentionned above, can be found here: https://forums.duke4.net/topic/9418-duke-caribbean-multiplayer-levels/

[iamrealbuilder]

Shawn Swift interview, part 2

You can find Part 1 of the interview here:

https://iamrealbuilder.tumblr.com/post/635493519657730048/shawn-swift-interview-part-1

Interview part 2, November 2020:

Corentin : You've previously stated that you stopped working with Sunstorm before Caribbean Life. Do you know why you're credited for it?

Shawn Swift : I left Sunstorm shortly after work on Life's a Beach began. So I'd probably provided them with some ideas, though I can't recall any I might have been responsible for. I'd also begun work on a map which if I recall correctly, was to feature some kind of caribbean jail or fort. I don't know if that ever made it into the final game as I never played it, but I didn't get very far on that map. I think I'd only made one cell at that point.

C: I'm wondering if perhaps some small constructions of yours were used within Caribbean maps. For instance I believe that this truck of yours from Final Destination was re-used by Robert Travis in DC (or was it the contrary?)  [editor note: Final Destination is a map from Xtreme, another DN3D add-on by Sunstorm]

S: Robert and I collaborated on the submarine base if I remember correctly. He focused on the interior of the sub, while I built parts of the base, and he finished it up. So yeah, I probably started with with that truck, re-using it and the spritework from my previous map. […] aside from my re-use of that truck, I don’t know of any re-purposing of old maps which took place.

C: So you can confirm that most if not all of the maps in Xtreme were made before DC? Making of Xtreme a compilation of older maps, for the most part (if not the entirety of it?)

S: My memory is a bit muddled here. It's possible I made the truck for DC and then ported it to Xtreme, or vice versa. I know DC was the first game we worked on, with Robert and I working out of our apartments, before Sunstorm had offices. However, I also recall that we finished DC in the new Sunstorm office, because that's where I created the ending, and Robert combined the two floors of the submarine into one. But I also recall working on levels for Duke Extreme at home.

So here's what I think happened... When I first started working at Sunstorm, I was hired as a texture and sprite artist for DC. I did all of the new sprites and textures for DC, and I made the new weapons for Extreme. But at some point, I switched from being an artist to a level designer, and I began work on Extreme from home. But Robert was still working on DC from home. I believe I made all of the maps I made for Extreme in a few days out of my apartment, then we moved into the new offices, and there I think I must have worked on the submarine base, so I probably took the subway from Xtreme and used that as a starting point for the DC map, or I simply recreated my work on the truck.

Then we released DC, and Xtreme I believe was released later, with many of the maps being created by contract workers we never met. And while they worked on those, and Charlie? worked from home on the scripting, and Robert and I began work on Cryptic Passage.

C: Speaking of Xtreme, the (excellent) DM map Library has no sig and its author is unknown. Do you know who made it? You may be able to confirm whether or not it's yours at least?

S: It's not mine, and I don't know who made it. I don't know the names of any of the contractors they used for Xtreme. I think there were five people outside the company he was hiring to make those levels? Not sure.

C: The one thing that doesn't look like you in the Brown Water control room however is the pillar in the middle, which is VERY reminiscent of the RT's pillars from another Xtreme map, Dirge.

S: Yeah, Robert added some stuff to the start of Brown Water I believe. Oh, and another bit of trivia for you... I don't know if this is still in the beta map or not, but in the Pentagon, there's a hallway that ends where it's collapsed, and I believe you can see through a hole there to the rest of the hallway beyond. At one point I had hidden my signature in there, but Tony made me remove it for some reason. Robert was much more clever about hiding his signatures in his levels. I believe in the White House there was one secret room hidden in the bottom of an elevator shaft?

C: Was there plans to make the Pentagon more fleshed out than it indeed up being?

S: Nothing was really planned, per se. We were given almost complete freedom to build whatever we wanted, aside from the general theme of this is the pentagon level, and Duke will get there via the sewers. Now, did I personally plan to build out more of the Pentagon? Absolutely. But I ran out of time, and I didn't have any idea what the pentagon actually looked like inside, so I assumed it was just long halls with offices to either side, and that wouldn't make for a very good level, so I didn't build out more than that single office and a bathroom. I couldn't tell you what possessed me to have the exit be at the bottom of a fountain in the middle. If I'm not mistaken though the sub base comes after that level right? Maybe I figured all drains lead to the ocean... :D

C: Thanks again to take the time to answer and for the explanations on the development of DC and Xtreme and other things. I'm not sure that anyone knows you made the new weapons for Xtreme either, there are very little known credits for it.

S: Yep, I made those, They were probably some of the last art I made for Sunstorm. After that they hired on another artist and I went full time level design.

The PSD said it was last modified Monday, ‎September ‎29, ‎1997, but that's not the original file. 

[Editor note: this bat never made it into the add-on. Shawn wasn’t able to remember what the plan was for it]

External links:

Duke4 blog megathread:

https://forums.duke4.net/topic/11471-blog-interviews-of-build-engine-video-games-developers/

Duke4 forum thread, discussion on whether or not Shawn’s cell made it to the final version of Caribbean Life. I decided not to include further info on this subject not to confuse people further.

https://forums.duke4.net/topic/9418-duke-caribbean-multiplayer-levels/

Thanks again to Shawn Swift for answering my questions and sharing these files!

[iamrealbuilder]

Shawn Swift interview, part 1

Shawn Swift was an artist and level designer for Sunstorm Interactive. He has worked on the official expansions Duke It Out In DC, Cryptic Passage and Caribbean Life for Duke Nukem 3D and Blood. In November 2020, I contacted him to ask him a few questions, and he also shared beta versions of Gothic Library (CP03.map in Cryptic Passage) and Brown Water (DUKEDC7.map in Duke It Out In DC).

Gothic Library beta screenshots taken by Shawn Swift in 1997:

Interview part 1, November 2020:

Corentin: This version of Brown Water is dated from after the release of the add-on. There are some differences, including texture work and visibility/shading differences most notably in the starting area. Do you remember what happened there? Did you keep working on the map after release, or is this somehow an earlier version and the texturing was dubbed down for the final version?

Shawn Swift: The file dates probably got changed at some point when copying them from drive to drive. I noticed the dates on many of the files looked incorrect.

But maybe that's just me mis-remembering when I worked on all this stuff. I definitely didn't keep working on the map after the product shipped. We immediately began working on Duke Extreme. The differences you noticed may be due to this map being the original version before I handed it off to Robert Travis who thentried to make one level flow naturally into the next. Or perhaps I just kept a slightly earlier version of the map all these years. Not sure!

C: Regarding Blood, for Gothic Library, there is indeed a cellar sketched in that map file but it's just a rough blockout of the layout with walls (there is also a room at the end of the corridor on the right upstairs, and just like the cellar I always knew there was supposed to be a room there!). Do you remember if this is your last version of the map before Robert Travis worked on it, or did you both keep working on the level together after this version?

S: Robert probably took over after that point. I think he finished the remainder of the map in a day, creating the whole of the attic on his own. I was running behind and he was really fast. I spent a lot of time getting the room-over-room to work in the main foyer.

Fun fact: I based the appearance of the library on what I could remember of the look and layout of the Manchester, NH city library: https://goo.gl/maps/pb1vWPNcGgWSS1wUA

C: One last question but LIB264.map is dated only 19 days before the known release date of Cryptic Passage, was the schedule really this tight? [Editor note: the known release date is 1997-06-30. However, some files on the disc are dated up to 1997-07-28]

S: Well, disclaimer aside about the file dates possibly being incorrect... Yeah, I believe the release schedules were really that tight. We had to pull an all nighter to get Duke it out in D.C. out the door. I was up into the wee hours of the morning creating the ending cinematic and trying to get it to run in the game, before we put it up on an FTP server for Wizardworks to grab. The Deluxepaint Animator code in the game was apparently not the best and I just had to keep tweaking the animation slightly until it finally ran. Tony (our boss) meanwhile, was running around the office with a little blanket as a cape.

C : Again I can only encourage you to release these 2 maps, imho your beta version of Gothic Library is very interesting!

S: Well, as far as I'm concerned, you're free to release them, but I don't have a personal website any more, and I'm not on any Duke forums, so the chances of me releasingthem myself are kinda slim. If you do put them out there, let me know, I'd like to see what folks have to say about them.

Thanks a lot to Shawn Swift for answering my questions and sharing these files! 

External links:

Beta maps download:

https://dukeworld.com/2001-current/unfinished/shawn-beta-addon-maps.zip

Duke4 blog megathread:

https://forums.duke4.net/topic/11471-blog-interviews-of-build-engine-video-games-developers/

Original Duke4 forum thread:

https://forums.duke4.net/topic/11454-shawn-swift-beta-add-on-maps/