Topic: Announcement: Army of Haloon - The Secret Prototype

[Kaiaatzl]

The team "Army Of Haloon" is excited to announce the availability of a new single-player and co-op mission for Descent 3.

"Army Of Haloon: The Prototype" is full of annoying bots in an epic, humourous story revolving around Materal Defender 1032 and his newfound enemies/employers.

Although "Army Of Haloon: The Prototype" only constitutes the first five levels of the  adventure, it's the third biggest singleplayer levelset ever created for Descent 3 - right behind Descent 3 Retribution and Descent 3 Mercenary.



By completing "Army Of Haloon: The Prototype" you will dive into many hours of single-player fun in the mines while listening to an amazing and complete new set of  Descent II style music, specifically composed for this mission.

Get your joy, keyboard, mouse, and pilot seat ready, then buckle up and Prepare for Jump and Descent...

And without further ado, a download link for Army Of Haloon: The Prototype

You can download the mission from here: http://www.dateiliste.com/en/descent-3/25-army-of-haloon/520-army-of-haloon-the-prototype.html

Official discussion board for "Army Of Haloon: The Prototype"

The official discussion forum for "Army Of Haloon: The Prototype" is here: http://www.dateiliste.com/en/forum/18-army-of-haloon.html

Read on for credits:

Army of Haloon: The Secret Prototype Credits:

Project Coordinator: Thomas

Level 1: Alpha Lyrae Research Facility: Original idea - Duper

Level Design - Almost Everyone

Music: Intro - Rv Dextron

'Demolition - original version' Excerpt - Vertigo Fox

'Beatdown' - Vertigo Fox

Level 2: Army of Haloon:

Level Design - Thomas, Mzero

Music: Intro - Aenn Seidhe Priest

'Infiltration' - Vertigo Fox

'Deus Ex Machina remix' - Vertigo Fox

Level 3: Red Valley:

Level Design - Mostly Thomas, Pete, and Shroudeye

Music - 'Infiltration original version'  excerpt - Vertigo Fox

'Manacore' - Vertigo Fox

'Smoke Jungle' - Vertigo Fox

Level 4: BlueWater:

Level Design - Mzero, Thomas

Music: 'The Web - Part I' - Vertigo Fox

'Winding Back' - Vertigo Fox

'Antigrav' - Vertigo Fox

Level 5: Varuna:

Level Design - VEX-Boogie

Music: Intro - Vertigo Fox

'Snow Jungle' - Vertigo Fox

'Into the Deep' - Vertigo Fox

[Matthew]

I have my stick, I certainly hope this level provides the joy It sounds fun.

[Pumo]

Hey, this looks very nice!

Must download this mission immediately. 

[Ronin RedFox]

Yeah, I've had the privalege to test this wonderful set. Its probably the biggest mission set you will ever see. 

[-<WillyP>-]

The title of this thread says 'Secret Prototype' everywhere else just says 'Prototype'.

[Foil]

D3 missions?  Sweet!

[Kaiaatzl]

The title of this thread says 'Secret Prototype' everywhere else just says 'Prototype'.

The original title was "The Secret Prototype, but it didn't fit into D3's mission list.  I named the thread with "Secret" because I thought it looked cooler, and it is more relevant to the mission's story (or at least the first level).

[Planet Orange [phx13]]

Awesome just the thing I was waiting for to fire back up Descent 3!

[TechPro]

OOooo!  Super Theifs that are on your side!!    That was different!

[Matthew]

To be honest super thief is pretty weak without special scripting.

[Scyphi]

You sold me at the words "Single-player."

Downloading now...'bout 5% complete already...

[Darkflamewolf]

This came out of left field, how long has this been in production? Who are the authors of said set. What is the quality of this set for anyone who has played it?

[Ronin RedFox]

This came out of left field, how long has this been in production? Who are the authors of said set. What is the quality of this set for anyone who has played it?

Its been in production at least a year and a half, The authors are various (Some are VEX-Boogie, MZero and Thomas.) I'd have to give the quality a 8/10, the scripting is fantastic. 

[Kaiaatzl]

If you look under the download link in my first post I gave credits and music titles (where applicable) for each level.  And Vertigo Fox is me.

As for the level design, it definitely looks as good or better than D3 Retribution, the lighting is masterfully done too.  Mzero's levels/areas are especially good.  The only complaints I'd have are some areas are so huge that (even when piloting the Phoenix) you seem to move at a snail's pace, and that the "climax" of level 3 tends to result, after a few minutes, in hunting for a few robots in a huge storage area.  In the demo, Level 2, level 4, and level 5 are my favourites (the climax of level 5 is... quite impressive and unique).

BTW - one of the later levels (level 13 or 14, it's not in the demo) is a remastered version of my old Shadow Caverns map (Mzero remastered it).

[Scyphi]

K, I've played all five levels now. Pretty fun level set for the most part.

The first level was okay, fairly simple, all the rooms looked alike, etc, but for an opening level, it wasn't bad. Although the sudden and kind of unprecedented fight in the outdoors kind of caught me off guard and felt like it dragged out the level just a little longer than necessary.

Second level was much of the same, but it's superb scripting pretty much makes up for any faults it had. The use of the superthiefs was particularly clever and was executed very well. I was afraid they might be buggy, but they certainly didn't seem to be.

Third level is my personal favorite, as it was long with plenty of eye-candy but very straight forward, and you really spend most of your time blasting robots, which actually proved to be very fun for me. And when you're not blasting robots you're flying through some fancy tunnels that I found fun to navigate. And sure, you've also got those five furnaces that you have to start up all in a row, but you have to do something different for each one, so it wasn't that repetitious. And despite what one might think, that end fight in the storage rooms wasn't so bad.

Fourth level was okay, but it got frustrating at times, as the list of objectives wasn't as clear, and I kept getting stuck, trying to figure out what I needed to do next. It's clear things are supposed to be done in a certain order, that order simply isn't clear the first time playing through, or probably the second time. I did like how the water would magically become clean the instant you completed the pertaining objective, though.

Level five was great in the sense that it was very mysterious and tense, and had a great and epic conclusion (so much so it almost seems like it needs another level to follow it up, or at least a concluding briefing), and I loved some of the puzzles, like that puzzle you had to solve to get the temple key. That was very clever. But most of that level felt, put simply, big and empty. A lot of the time I felt like I was just wandering randomly through the level, trying to find the end of the level. After awhile, there weren't even enough bots to fight anymore.

But all in all, the level set was pretty good, and I expect I'll be playing it again sometime in the future.