34 I Can Feel It

Tips and Secrets

The central idea of this level is to reach a computer core and shut it down. In order to reach the core, the player has to solve a series of rooms, each of which opens up an area in another room, all grouped around the core.

The player starts outside, on a landing platform. Run into the building, and go up the elevator... you may have to wait, since the elevator has a bit of a pause to it. There is a switch and a terminal in the room above. The switch opens the door that leads to the rest of the level.

Drop down the elevator (where you will thank me for the pause) and go through the open door. Pass through a medium sized room, through a door, to the left, and through another door to a small room with a yellow powerup terminal. I will call this room the "yellow powerup room" since you will be visiting it more than once. At the other end of the yellow powerup room is a door that leads to a large "goo" chamber with three rotating towers. On either side of this goo room are four control room areas with various monsters in them. You can choose to deal with them now, or deal with them later.. you will be passing through those control rooms on your way to the solution to the level.

Side-step run (you have to have mastered this skill by now if you got this far in Tempus) to the first tower. There is a secret here. If you run completely around the first tower, and back to the small ledge you started from, open the door, and dash to your left, you can enter a secret red room. This has a secret terminal, some ammo goodies and a 3x powerup. Side-step run from tower to tower until you reach the small ledge at the other side of the goo room. There is a 2x powerup and a switch there that will open a door that you can see down on the wall to the right hand side of the goo room. Side-step run back to the central tower, and hop down to the now open door.

Follow the path through the room there, down the hall, until you reach a medium sized room with a save terminal, yellow powerup, and a terminal. I'll call this the "save terminal room" since you will find that you will be returning here several times to recharge your shields, and save your game. There is an elevator-door combo that lifts you out of the room and enters you into the main corridor that encircles the core of the map. First thing you should do is take out all of the troopers in this corridor... there are a couple of invisibility powerups that will give you a false sense of bravado while you accomplish this. As you run around this corridor, you will notice 4 doors. Once of these leads to the save terminal room, and another opens to the first part of the puzzle of this level. (it has been awhile, so I don't *quite* remember which is the second open door... I think it was the north west one). Try each door until you find the other one that opens. Here you will enter a room that is an apparent dead-end. When you approach the wall at the end opposite the door, it will open up, revealing more of the room, and again, as you enter this new area, yet another wall will open, finally revealing the entire room.

You will notice a pillar-thing with little feet sticking out from it, and a second, red pillar. I'll call this the red pillar room. If you side-step run diagonally at the little feet sticking out, slide onto the raised part of the first pillar, and keep going until you hit the second pillar, you can make it up there to see a small button on the side of the red pillar... this will raise a set of stairs that will lead to the door you see up the wall. Go up the stairs, through the door, around to the right, where you will come out looking across the top of the walls that raised up with the stairs. Sidestep run across the tops of these walls and around to the right to a small ledge there. (Do you see a trend here? Sidestep running is an important skill!) Run around the small ledge into a small room with a switch. This will open the next room off the main corridor. Notice that there is a closed door next to this small room... you will be revisiting this area.

Jump down, out and up the corridor to your left, and follow it around until you come to a once-closed, but now open, room. This room is L-shaped, with a pillar around the corner to the left. Go there, and on the back side of the pillar is a switch. This will open a door near the entrance to this room. Go through this new door and up the stairs to the left, and around until you reach a small room with a window, and a switch next to it, and an opening that leads into an airshaft. Flip the switch, and look through the window into a small red room to see a door open into the red pillar room... this was the closed door mentioned at the end of the previous paragraph. Either go back down the stairs, or run into the air shaft and drop down, and return to the red pillar room.. up the stairs, around, across the walls, to the small ledge, and into the now opened red pillar room. There is a switch in there that will open a blockage in that airvent in the room on the other side of the window. Return there, and head down the airvent.

When you get to the end of the airvent, tread carefully.. you need to sneak out, onto a very thin ledge, and inch over to your right, until you can get a clear shot of a switch at the top of the pillar there. That switch will open up the "blue room".. the final room of the central corridor puzzle. If memory serves me right, that room is in the north east corner of the central corridor. Go to that room, and you will find on the left-hand side a small set of steps which leads to a small ledge. Side-step run from the end of that ledge, across the yellow boxes, until you reach the ledge on the upper far side of the room. That ledge leads into the air shafts.

There are two ways you can go here. First, take the left-hand path, and you will drop down into a lower shaft that leads in three directions. To the left and right are control rooms you need to visit, and in the center you can jump down into the goo room. First, head to the left, and either jump down and tab the switch there, or shoot the switch from up in the air shaft. You will see the goo in the goo room drop, and an indicator bar in that room will also drop to illustrate this. Then head to the right, and you will find a second control room with a switch that will raise a platform in the air shaft so that you can rise back up to the part that leads to the goo room.

OK.. with the goo room drained, drop down and enter the door in the north east part of the goo room. This will take you to an elevator that will raise you up to the other two control rooms. There is not much to do in these control rooms other than to pass through them on the way through. Follow the path, down to a bend that ends in a door with a switch. Flip the switch, and two doors will open, on either side of the previously visited "yellow powerup" room. Go through to the other room, and you will see a platform in the wall, and a switch. Hit the switch and the platform will drop... this will unblock the airvent that leads to the central core. Go through the teleporter to return to the blue room. Go back up across the yellow boxes and enter the airvent again... this time follow the right-hand path. This vent branches a few times.. always follow the right-hand path. This will bend around and eventually lead you to a shaft that drops down into the core.

The rest of the map is easy... hit the four outer switches and the core will flicker out and turn dark. Once that happens, four switches facing into the center of the core will light up. Hit all four of these, and the core will re-awaken. Use the terminals to exit the level.

Map Making Notes

Just plain straight-ahead Marathon map making, with tons of split polys to add those cool lighted texture effects here and there. Nothin' fancy... if you don't count the use of the whacky control platform switches inside the core. Nothing in this level gave me any trouble... so there is very little to note here. With the exception of removing some extra weapons and ammo that the testers found to be superfluous, the level here is pretty much as I created it in the first version.