(Those lacking context for this are advised to start with my beginners’ guide to Marathon mapmaking.)

I know this really isn’t what you want to hear, but: Don’t make a scenario by yourself. Don’t even try. Don’t even entertain the thought. No, I see you entertaining it right now. Stop that. Stop it right now. Start small, learn the basics, make a few single-level single-player maps, get some player feedback, and then – and this part is really important – join an existing project when you’ve proved you know what you’re doing.

All of us have ideas we think are the Coolest Ideas Ever when we start out mapping. The problem is, so does everyone else that starts out mapping, and maybe 1% of those ideas ever actually turn into finished scenarios. Why? Because making a scenario is extraordinarily hard, extraordinarily time-consuming, and requires a depth and breadth of skills and time far beyond most single individuals’ capabilities. (Remember Hofstadter’s Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.)

As a result, most of those Coolest Ideas Ever will never exist in playable form unless enough capable people join forces and pool their efforts. This inevitably means that some of your ideas will change in the making, because they won’t fit together perfectly with others’ ideas. But – and this part may not be easy to hear either – this will improve them, since subjecting an idea to varied perspectives strengthens it. The interchange tests ideas for weaknesses, uncovers them, and finds ways to eliminate them – in short, it makes those ideas better.

To cover several well-known examples, in roughly ascending order of team size:

• hypersleep worked on most aspects of Apotheosis X in some capacity or another, but I think the music was the only thing he did entirely himself. Another three people worked on maps, one worked on animation, two contributed writing and plot ideas, and one worked on Lua scripting and some of the sound effects.
• Rubicon X was at least seven people’s work (five mappers, three artists, a composer).
• RyokoTK made most of Phoenix’s levels, but Goran Svensson contributed a few; counting Ryoko, six people contributed graphics, and the music was two other people’s work (three, if you count remastering).
• Trojan’s music alone is four different people’s work, and I count at least eight credited mappers. Two people worked on sounds across various releases, and I didn’t even try counting all the artists.
• On the higher end of the spectrum, Tempus Irae and its sequel Tempus Irae II: The Lost Levels have between them fourteen credited mappers and nineteen total credited contributors. (Tempus Irae Redux will bump those numbers to fifteen and at least thirty, respectively.)
• Eternal X, at what I’m pretty sure is the high end, has forty-four credited contributors.

There’s a reason for this: however much work you think it is to make a scenario, it’s probably well over ten times more work than that. Having people to:

1. bounce ideas off of,
2. keep you focused,
3. remind you of your scope,
4. provide critiques

will make you work harder, better, faster, and smarter. (OK, fine, stronger, too.)

For the sake of completeness, two obvious outliers bear mention here:

1. Istoria is mostly three people’s work – and it’s also only ten levels long. (This is actually a superb example of keeping your scope realistic for your team’s size.)
2. Red (original website here) is entirely the work of one guy, who went on to become a professional game and webcomic artist. He also made it in a single year as a teenager and now seems to be embarrassed by it. There’s an exception to every rule. But in this case, probably only one.

If everyone that came to Reddit or Discord to ask, “How do I make a scenario?” pooled their efforts, they might, collectively, between them, come up with a scenario – which would be one more than we have right now.

And just to make certain I’ve been absolutely clear: I’m not telling anyone not to start mapping. But before trying to fly, learn to crawl – and once you’ve mastered walking and driving, join a flight school.

…Finish an Unfinished One

—	Aaron Freed 2024-11-03

Back to top · Beginners’ Guide · Advanced guide · My ludography · My discography · Contact me · Website index