------------SURVIVAL VERSION 2 INFORMATION------------

So, you've spent a while downloading a old and uncompleted version of Survival.
You're either interested in it's history, or looking for any resources you can
scavange for your TC. In any case, greetings! I hope this package is of some
use to you for whatever reasons. I'm doing this writeup incase you really ARE
interested in Survival's history. I always find it fascinating to read up the
development of singleplayer games, so I'd like to do it for anybody else who
enjoys the same thing. If you don't really care for the history, just skip to 'what's in this package?' for information about it's contents.

------------INSTALLATION------------

Just unzip this package into a fresh directory, and than copy a Duke3D atomic edition group file into the same directory. Than just simply click on the Survival.bat - that's it!

The versions of Eduke32 and Mapster32 included are old and outdated - I've included them since I doubt newer versions would work well with Survival's older code, and there's no point spending time porting it to a newer version since this one works fine.

------------HISTORY OF SURVIVAL------------

Survival was a small pen and paper strategy game I made up when I was young. The
world had been struck by a large spaceship and wiped out most forms of life. It
was your job to help a small group of people survive in the aftermath. Rather than being a desert wasteland roamed by murdering rapists like in Mad Max or Fallout, the Survival world was green and bright, as if somebody had hit the reset switch on civilisation. Junkyards were 'resource' taps - you rolled on a chart to see what you found. If you rolled a 12, you could have any 'reasonible' object. I loved to play this game, even though it had no aim or goal whatsoever.

------------SURVIVAL VERSION ONE------------

A few years later, I came across Duke Nukem 3D (I was about 11 then) and fell in love with it almost immediatly. After messing about in a few small projects, I left Duke (although this was more to do with the fact it didn't run on my new computer) and came back after Eduke's release. This was when Survival's development started. If you check the Survival site at www.geocities.com/jstanf36, you can download a tech demo of what I managed to achieve. Ironically enough, although it's the most primitive version, it's the closest to the original game by far. It had leader's huts, inventing, farmyards and the 'Sparkgun' (a staple of the game) However the game was originally going to have 4 full episodes, with a large story. You were to fight Mutants and Pitfiends (An enemy that first appeared in Imagination World) across the devestated world, before taking the fight to the source of the mutant invasion.

But of course, my interest disapeared. 4 episodes was too much to do - it was something that might of been possible when I was younger, but then it just didn't seem likely, and so Survival version one was cancelled. At that point, I had a basic site and there was very little community feedback on the tech demo so it wasn't really missed.

------------SURVIVAL VERSION TWO------------

A few years later, Eduke32 was released. I took it upon myself to port the old tech demo so I could play it on Windows XP. Doing this reinvigorated my interest in Survival, especially since IW was drawing to a close (it STILL is, I need to finish the damn thing!) so I decided to work on it again. However, in the years since I last worked on it I realised that going with the same visual style just wouldn't of worked, and the story needed changing to fit with IW episode 4's as well. I also decided that it would of been insane to tackle it by myself, so I decided to ask 3 people to help me - Geoffrey Van Dijk, Rusty Nails, and Quakis (although Quakis soon left afterwards on good terms) I built ontop of the old tech demo, and started coding in new features for the team to use. Unlike my other TCs, I took a secretive approach for version 2. No website, no large screenshot displays, we just worked on it. 

However, eventually we hit a roadblock. The story was written out, and it tied in heavily with IW v2, but something was missing. For starters, there was no gameplay. I had a few weapons imported, although they were nothing special at all. There were no enemies at all, and the more we built the harder it got to find any enemies that would look good in the environment. The story was too complicated and contrived. It wasn't Dostoevsky material, but the plot took players to a large majority of places across the world. Old factories, laborotories, Naval bases, Undersea facilities - the themes were varied enough. However, at the time I felt they were far too familiar to what I was doing in IWv2. It wasn't really doing anything new at all, and I was growing terribly sick of building bland facilities. It was also at this time that my real world life took a drastic turn. My college Exam results were abysmal (I think we all know what caused that ;) ) and so I had to drop out and start looking for work. Due to this, I spent most of my time alone - I believe the major shift in Survival's theme to the current version was related to that at the time. Strangely enough, considering the work we've done on Version 3 compared to V1 and V2 it payed off big time.

------------SURVIVAL VERSION THREE------------

I made a drastic change to the plot - without consulting either of my teammates, I rewrote it almost completely. Instead of damaging the Earth, the large spaceship would actually wipe it out completely. James would be flung through a remaining time portal to a distant alien planet which had seen little human activity. It was a major change, but I'm lucky both Rusty and Geoffrey accepted the change fine. Right from the start, I overhauled lots of lots of code. I added in a new weapon system, a completely new HUD, and most of all I coded in Enemies first so we could actually get some gameplay going. 

Several months later, we're still going strong. Despite having a few fallouts with team members due to my stubbornness, we're working really hard on it. Rusty is still stretching his talents across multiple TCs, a skill I find abmirable. Geoffrey still tears out his hair when I introduce something new and strange without any warning, but he's willing to trust me enough with my coding skills. They've both managed to make incredible looking levels. Sangluss, William Gee, Numan, Toadie and Rob have also been valuable team members. I'm still amazed at what Survival is right now - it's the furthest from the original game, but it's quality is incredible and it's gameplay fun. We're taking alot of risks with it, but they will definitly pay off.

------------WHAT'S IN THIS PACKAGE?------------

Here's a brief description of the level's contents. Note that they're all very small, so playing through them all might take you about 10 minutes, probably less.

Ffact.map - Geoffrey's level. In this level you'd discover a small group of Survivors who would ask you to run to various facilities to get working power, water and sewage facilities. You would of revisited this level a few times.

flash.map - a test map for the very poor flashlight. Press 'Insert' to activate it.

Office.map - a level set in an office. The plan was to ascend the office block whilst loads of mutants gather outside; you would be hearing them bang against the Reception doors whilst you searched for a missing girl. Once you did find here, in typical fashion the doors would break and you'd have to run for your life. A boss battle would take place in a courtyard, and then you'd find a friend of yours from IWv2.

RN2.map - Rusty_Nail's level. This was the sewage treatment plant, where you would to reactivate the Factory's sewage system. Rusty convinced me to try and put in Toxic Dinosours (or was it toxic zombies? I think it was both) in this level, but we never got round to it.

SEA.map - The seabase featured in Episode 2. You were to find Epsilon here, along with the mutated research staff and various other fish monster thingys. Staring at the Shark and....Gold fish swimming in the sea is a nice sight (no matter how unplausible)

Stest.map - a single room containing 2 book items, made to test the inventory (accessed with the Delete key, or whatever's bound to look left)

WATERB.map - this map has had an interesting history. It was originally in Survival version 1, than it was ported to version 2 as a waterbase map. This is the longest map in the package, and it features 2 keypads which were a nice con achievment for me. You originally came here to reactivate the water, but as the body floating in the water at the start shows, you would of have to fight some mutants in the process as well. This map is currently in Survival version 3 as part of the initial map set on Earth.

Wreck.map - Another interesting section. This was originally made for IW v2, but the level was cut and ported to Survival version 2. It was the first map of Episode one, and you had to travel through a deserted city. It's currently in Survival version 3, also as part of the initial map set on Earth.


WEAPONS
Err, there's 4 weapons done - not including the leftovers from Version 1. There's the stupidly fast and weak Desert Eagle, the SPAS-12 which doesn't need to load new shells, and the XM8 with no muzzleflash. There's also the bouncy energy gun in slot 7. Not much to see there, but it's interesting. A bit. 

CON CODE
Also not much interesting, although the Keypad code is nice. That's about it!


CREDITS
TEXTURE CREDITS
Relic25
Justin Fisher
Dethtex
Mighty Pete
Spooge
El Guapo
Evillair
Raven
Xatrix
Watershape
Marc Schröder

3DREALMS for Duke Nukem
Ken Silverman for BUILD, and Polymost
Jonof for Jonof's port
TerminX for Eduke32
Rusty_Nails and Geoffrey for putting up with me
Quakis for his brief period on the team
DeeperThought for inspiring me to release this
Myself, for dedicating the time to write something only 2 people will read
And you, for being one of the 2.

Feel free to use anything in this package, but just give some credit to me (James Stanfield), Rusty_Nails and Geoffrey Van Dijk.