[OpenArena] The evolution of am_galmevish and a new version teaser

am_galmevish was my first contribution for OpenArena. It's a combination of three levels from the Unreal series: Morbias, Gael and Leviathan. The main dome is Morbias, but there are corridors from the extremes to the main level as alternatives to the double teleporters. These corridors have also direct sight to the upper level at the extremes.

The map's basic layout remained the same for the versions that shipped in OA 0.8.1 and OA 0.8.5, and can still be found in 0.8.8 (though the original galmevish is dummied out, and it can only be loaded through console). There's a noticeable difference between both versions, 0.8.1 is larger, and has a more varied weapon/item layout. am_galmevish2 in 0.8.8 also gained Harvester and Double Domination support. The 0.8.1 version of am_galmevish was fixed for their inclusion in the Older Versions mappack; there's a version in the Github repository which also has support for the newer Possession gametype and other fixes.

For the version intended to be shipped with the reboot OpenArena 3, called am_galmevish-oa3, there will be plenty of changes, as it's been recreated from scratch in order to tackle certain performance problems. The first and most noticeable change is the visual theme, as past versions had a castle theme, which became redundant with other levels. The OA3 version has an industrial theme, more in line with some current OA maps such as blitzkrieg3 and oa_dm3, but different enough so those maps can't be confused.

The second noticeable thing is that the map had layout changes in order to improve gameplay. In previous versions, most of the fight happened in the central dome, and the upper level wasn't visited as much. Therefore, four pillars were turned into jump stations, which propelled players to the upper level without having to go through the lateral roads or the teleports, cancelling the bottleneck. Another important change can be seen in two extra reaching points between the upper level end of each ramp and the upper level of the extremes. Also, one of the ends was turned into a jumppad while the other remained a dual teleporter.

The backyard behind the teleporter was supposed to be just an ambientation piece with a Levelord-esque easter egg, but after playing a bit of other games with secret areas, something I wanted to implement in an OA map for so long, I've decided to turn it into a secret area reachable by way of a small, hidden button in the dual teleporters extreme and a goodie inside of this former ambientation area. There's also a BFG in the map, but put down your torches and pitchforks, as you require a bit of timing in order to be able to pick it up!

Anyway, enough chitchat, as I'm sure you'll want to try these maps. Here's where you can find them:

• am_galmevish - OpenArena 0.8.8
• am_galmevish2 - OpenArena 0.8.8
• Supports: Free for all, Last Man Standing, Tournament, Harvester, Double Domination.
• 081am_galmevish (Older versions pack)
• Supports: Free for all, Last Man Standing, Tournament.
• am_galmevish-oa3 (OA3 Beta 1)
• Supports: Free for all, Last Man Standing, Tournament, One Flag CTF, Harvester, Double Domination, Possession.

Have fun!