Another Reality/en
Another Reality (abbreviated AR) is a single player campaign for Unreal. It is being developed by a team of enthusiasts on Old-Games.Ru forum both in Russian and in English.
Game world
Plot
| Another Reality trailer 2011 |
The story of Another Reality starts right after the events of the official add-on Return to Na Pali. The player turns out on the board of a military spacecraft, attacked by desperate Prisoner №849.
The atmosphere on the «Bodega Bay» bustles as the ship’s service does not stop for a moment. One more unit of space marines doesn’t come back from deployment. The connection is lost and the destiny of the prisoner is unknown. However, the military aren’t going to miss the objective. To prevent leaks of valuable information they have to dismantle the prisoner. While the command leads the mission, the whole staff of military technicians, specialists and service personnel tries to provide the soldiers with everything necessary. Not only the medical staff and the gunsmiths in the UMS arsenals are responsible, but also the military technicians, who equip the marines for landing in Na Pali. When the unit is about to start landing, an alarming message is reported by loudspeaker. After that, things go too fast to prevent a catastrophe.
The command reports about a terrain shuttle being located on the way out of the atmosphere. Ignoring warning signals and identification requests the shuttle continues its way towards the «Bodega Bay» adrift in orbit. And it’s pretty clear that the pilot of the shuttle is Prisoner №849. The «Bodega Bay» in its turn launches a missile, which turns to be fatal. Taking advantage of smaller shuttle dimensions, the Prisoner manages to avoid the blast. He flies in dangerous proximity to the spacecraft, forcing the target-seeking system to send the missile right towards the «Bodega Bay» bow.
The explosion damages one of the ship’s stabilizers. Plentiful arsenals, containing explosives start to detonate, provoking further chain reaction. The hull of the ship is breached and the life-support system is shut down. Without its stabilization system the ship starts to lean. The left cargo bay (which is damaged by a missile according to RtNP video) depressurizes. Control rooms and communication center get blocked by emergency protocols right away. Cabin and technical doors are on the contrary get open. Accompanied by the emergency siren the evacuation of personnel starts.
Only few people manage to get to escape pods or find another way of leaving the ship. One of them is a military UMS technician, responsible for maintenance of combat equipment operating in harsh conditions of alien planets and space outposts. Just before the alarm, he starts to check a military suit for one of the marines. Keenly aware of all possible dangers he gets into an enhanced spacesuit. After grabbing a compact and secure weapon (the Automag) and the Universal Translator, he heads to evacuation bay. Fortunately being well trained he knows how to cope with this kind of emergency. Meantime the crash proves to be disastrous and results in multiple fatalities. What’s more, even a successful evacuation might end up in an endless drift around a godforsaken planet, inhabited by hostile species. There is also a high risk of the escape pod crash. Then its passenger will be eventually left face-to-face with savage beasts and warrior aliens.
That’s exactly what our military technician thinks about. Fortunately, he comes up with the idea of getting into one of the landing shuttles used by the marines. With this shuttle it’s possible not only to get far away but also to reach one of the UMS bases. This perspective seems to be more successful than evacuation in escape pod.
No time is left, the «Bodega Bay» leans more ready to fall apart in any moment. It’s high time for the miltech to leave the scene using a landing shuttle.
He hardly manages to escape death as another obstacle gets in his way. His shuttle falls into one of the gravitational vortexes of the ill-known planetary field. The shuttle is out of control, the automatic navigation system shuts down and there is no time to reset the coordinates. A rocky area of Na Pali with its black cliffs, unknown lakes and green patches of local jungle is seen in the distance. The landing turns into a rapid fall. But fortune favors the bold. Our miltech bails out within seconds before his shuttle crashes into one of the cliffs and lands in a nearby pond.
The water breaks the fall and our lucky miltech survives. Confused and wounded, he ultimately makes it to shore. But what’s next? He faces a completely unfamiliar terrain full of multiple dangers, known and undisclosed ones. The miltech wearing a marine suit is left alone with the ill-fated planet, completely unaware of the «Bodega Bay» destiny. Is there a chance that anyone else might have survived the crash? Would it be possible to find the crash scene if the spaceship didn’t make it in orbit (which is quite evident)? He’ll have to go on a quest to find any survivors, help and reinforcement or any other way to escape from the planet. However, Na Pali is full of secrets and the adventures here don’t end that easy…
Features
Another Reality is being developed as an immense campaign of 30 levels, bound by a single plot. It continues the original story of Unreal and the official expansion Return to Na Pali. Another Reality is a single player campaign, thought the possibility of cooperative gameplay is not excluded. Its main feature is an accurate following to the traditions of original Unreal and before all maintaining the unique atmosphere of the game.
The mod is planned to feature almost the whole Unreal and Return to Na Pali contents (weapons, bonuses, hostile and peaceful creatures) and also the environmental themes (industrial locations, futuristic bases, spaceships, primitive aborigine settlements and their larger towns, castles, fortresses and ancient temples, as well as different landscapes, plains, mountains and dungeons).
And on top of that, the mod will contain certain novelties. For instance, the stylistics of some AR levels conveys the locations of pre-released versions of Unreal, which didn’t have analogues in the final version of the game. The gameplay process in its turn also has some new changes: it’s above all the possibility of using different mutators. They are totally optional and can be activated one at a time or all together thus changing the gameplay in a certain way. The current working version of AR works with three mutators: the first one adds the necessity of recharching of some weapons (the mutator is made by Alien3674 and FACH specially for AR), the second one brings back the old weapons sounds (the mutator is created be SKW for a series of semi-official patches version 227 from OldUnreal team). And finally, the last one sufficiently enhances most enemies AI (the author of this mutator is Masterkent, an OldUnreal team member). The two last mutators can be activated while playing the main Unreal campaign and Return to Na Pali.
Versions, releases, sequels
The mod is currently on the stage of development. There is a demo-version, uploaded in December 2011 (check References section). Officially, it has nine levels, but technically two of them are partially presented. Besides, almost all levels of the current version need to be improved and refined, though they do not contain any serious bugs. Down below you can find the screenshots from the demo-version and a complete walkthrough video of all levels.
Some more things are being planned at the moment. The first one is a demo-version, containing ten levels. Nine of the levels are from 2011 demo. They have been finalized and united together into two separate episodes. The second one is another location, more extensive in comparison with other levels. However, the deadline is still uncertain.
Team
The team members of Another Reality changed repeatedly during the whole period of the mod development.
Initial team members
(the members are listed in chronological order according to their appearance in a team)
- LipShez - M210 - unreal doom
Present team members
(the same chronological order)
- unreal doom - King (King89) - ArchGrey
List of all people contributed to development of mod
| Name | Tasks |
|---|---|
| unreal doom | - artist director - screenplay - mapper |
| King (King89) | - mapper - plot and ideas |
| xman260591 | - mapper - plot and ideas |
| Alien3674 | - mapper - scripting - models - sound |
| Alexys | - sound - models |
| FACH | - plot and ideas - scripting - models |
| DENTNT | - models |
| Asgard | - presented the model of the game character, the UMS marine-soldier |
| Masterkent | - the author of mutator, enhancing the enemies’ AI |
| SkaarjZR and HighPriest | - the authors of russian localization, which is used by the mod |
| ArchGrey | - interpreter - plot and ideas |
| Vic | - interpreter |
Vacancies
To date, the Another Reality team needs people experienced in the UnrealED game engine version 1.0, 2.0 and 2.1 and Unreal Engine's native scripting language. The good knowledge of the Unreal game itself, of its pre-release 95 and 97 versions (the 95 version can be found in the References section, the 97 version can be shared by request) and of the official add-on Return to Na Pali can be also useful.
The mod is based on the English version of Unreal Gold v227 (the pre-version 227g and later).
Story of development
Year 2007
-The beginning of the development of Another World level
Year 2008
- LipSheZ suggests to all those who wish to take part in the development of the Unreal mod, which totally conveys the atmosphere of the original game. M210 and unreal doom are the first to respond
- The preparation of the scenario of the future mod starts
- Another World level is finished
- King joins the team
- The start of the development of Tarydium Land and Outpost 4Z levels
Year 2009
- Tarydium Land and Outpost 4Z levels are completed
- Initial work in the development of Tarydium Factory, Urhur Abyss and Skaarj Outpost levels
- The Urhur Village levels started and finished (the morning and the evening versions)
- Angela82, FACH and xman260591 join the team
Year 2010
- LipSheZ and M210 quit the team
- The mod scenario is completed
- Tarydium Factory level is finished
- The start of the development of Nali Temple, Sun Land, Cave Temple and Abandoned Mine levels
- The mod development is moved to another engine - Unreal Tournament v436
Year 2011
- The levels Sun Land, Skaarj Outpost and Abandoned Mine are finished
- The development of Dark Basteria and Mothership 2 levels is initiated
- Alien3674, ArchGrey and SkaarjZR join the team
- The mod development is moved to Unreal Gold v227 engine
- SkaarjZR provides the mod with a new Russian localization and a more appropriate HUD font
- The preparation of the English version of the mod aimed at an international audience starts
- The first scripts are written. Among them: a script replacing the default player with a marine having specific characteristics; a script allowing to launch the mod from a separate menu with any level of difficulty and from any episode; a script displaying gameplay statistics at the end of every mod level
- The last to date Beta Demo is published in English and in Russian
Year 2012
- xman260591 quits the team
- Universal Complex level is started
- A special menu is extended; there is an opportunity of playing the mod with certain mutators
- A new mutator which adds the necessity of recharching of some weapons is created
- The team discusses the possibility of moving the mod to the Unreal Tournament 2004 engine. The discussion results in FACH's leaving and the team decides to continue the work using the Unreal Gold v227 engine
Year 2013
- A new mutator enhancing the enemies AI is created. Masterkent, the author of the mutator, created it as an independent product, therefore AI_Mutator is not related to the mod directly. However, the mod's difficulty now fully depends on this mutator
- Nali Temple level is completed
- One special bonus is added to the player's inventory
Year 2014
- The beginning of the development of Cryox II and Heavy Clouds levels
- Alexys joins the team
- Urhur Abyss and Cave Temple levels are completed
- Canyon level is started and completed
- SkaarjZR quits the team
Year 2015
- Additional scenery models are created, including the animated forge bellows
- Angela82 leaves the team
- The idea of the plot reduction is supported by all team members and is under discussion. However, there is no general agreement on the amount and the character of changes. The team fails to reach a compromise. As a result, Alexys and Alien3674 leave the team. The reduction is carried out without them and does not affect the key points of the plot and the actual groundwork in the from of existing game levels
- The Badlands level is started
Year 2016
- Heavy Clouds level is finished
Year 2017
- The Badlands level is finished
- Dark Basteria level is finished
- Vic joins the team
- The Catacomb level is started
Year 2018
- Canyon level is being remade to replace the old 2014-version with the new one
- A playable part of the Catacombs level is published
- Nali Castle 3 level development started
- Cryox II is finished
Year 2019
- Another Reality Flyby Intro is made, using the flying camera around the castle from Nali Castle 3 level
- Canyon level is remade. The new version takes place of the older one made in 2014
Year 2020
- Catacomb level is completed
Year 2021
- Soledad 2 level development started
Year 2023
- Demo-version(rus) is updated. Its contents are mostly the same as in 2011 Beta Demo but all levels are now improved and up-to-date. Nali Temple and Urhur Abyss maps are presented in specific versions for beta demo only. The Flyby cinematic around the castle in icy area is added
Year 2024
- An updated version of the Another Reality demo is finished. It contains the same demo levels as in 2023 with a lot of changes: a critical compatibility error with the 227J patch has been fixed, problems with saving and launching a saved game have been fixed, localization files have been updated, HOMs have been fixed at some levels, a new hub level has been added for a comfortable transition between episodes, also there's a lot of minor changes in levels content.
- The Nali Order - Entrance level development started
