So, whatever happened to Duality? (Off-Topic)

by Fuertisimo, Wednesday, December 11, 2013, 23:25 (3792 days ago) @ zumphry

Such a shame, game seemed loaded with promise. Seemed to have a very different tone from any other games being made at that time, if you know what I mean. Very mysterious, kind of dark, somewhat heady and intellectual. I loved the website too. When I was just a wee lad I had a myth map making group that I named Duality after that game. We were a spectacular failure, but hey, what is there to expect from a bunch of 14 and 15 year olds?

Did you ever play the Thief games (I, II, III)? They definitely fit the mysterious, dark, and heady/intellectual vibe Duality was going for, and I've always thought Looking Glass had similar philosophies and design sensibilities as Bungie (if not better). Plus, Thief was a pretty good complement to Myth, with animated cutscenes, a worm's eye view to the story, and the third game in both series not being up to par to the previous two (though, Thief III is more of a 7.6, as opposed to a 3.1 for the nonexistent Myth III, if you're grading like Pitchfork).

As for mapmaking, I kinda regret not being around to do any mapmaking for Marathon, Myth or any other game in the "golden age" of the 90's and early 00's. Though, I would've probably never finished anything, since the few maps I tried making for Marathon and Myth when I played with FCAW on B.net a few years ago sucked, so I gave up. I'm a lazy ideas guy :,-( (which is the worst kind of ideas guy, and they're already the worst of the worst).

I'm actually not too familiar with Thief though I am aware of the series' existence. I can see the similarities in tone, but I feel like Duality was shooting for a sort of future religion (Future (War) Cult?) space opera kind of thing. That's just conjecture based on the screenshots though.

Marathon was significantly easier and more suited to my skill-set so far as map creation goes, but I was also in the 5th grade when I first started playing around with Forge so you can imagine how primitive those offerings were. It was loads of fun though, and to this day I sometimes get an idea for a new multiplayer map but I haven't actually touched Forge in over a decade. Great tool, Forge was. Simple enough for a beginner but with some creativity you could make some awesome stuff, as evidenced by a lot of the great community offerings over the years.

Myth was another can of worms because I am not a talented artist, which put a serious crimp in my map making endeavors. Full of enthusiasm but short on talent. My little group did end up releasing a few maps though, but they were fairly crude. I was far better at playing Myth than I ever was at making maps for it.