Walkthrough 1997 Part Two - Jungle Road

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Walkthrough 1997 Part Two - Jungle Road

Post by tatu »

Discuss part two of the walkthrough here.


Jungle Road

The jungle is a marked contrast to the beach - suddenly the player enters a quiet area thick with growth. This close to the shore, the jungle is relatively well lit, with golden sunlight penetrating the canopy. Only the lightest mist floats among the trees, and all in all it should be a safe-seeming area. The surf sounds become muted and then disappear altogether, and the player is left following a narrow, overgrown dirt path.
Jungle Road is, obviously, a jungle area. It need not be said that the Jungle Road area is one of the most crucial areas in the game – it is where we introduce the player to the beauty of the island, and to our style of gameplay. The high concept is to provide them here with a section of jungle to wander around where they can see picturesque scenes and solve interesting physical puzzles, in a relatively unthreatening environment.

Overall Structure

After leaving the starting beach area, players enter the Jungle Road area through a narrow pass in the east. There is an extremely faint path leading you through it, remnants of a dirt road that used to lead from the beach to the construction zone. You go up a rise, and for a moment there is a level area – through the trees you can barely make out the monorail terminus – basically two big slabs of concrete, with a roof overhead supported on pillars.

The eastern part of this area should be relatively open – hills and depressions divide it up, but there isn't a forced path – you can follow the monorail or not. Later on, the only way to go is along the monorail track, forcing you to pass a series of puzzles, which lead you to the Final Exam area. It's also possible to keep exploring west, where you can find a few dinosaurs, a small Mayan ruin, and the southwestern beach – all described below. A view of the overall layout is provided in Jungle Road Plan.bmp.


Monorail Terminus Area


The rail terminus is a simple structure – two concrete platforms, with a few pillars supporting a simple roof. It is all now thickly overgrown with vegetation – it should be hard to spot among the trees and ferns, until you're right on it. It was once intended to be the drop-off point for visitors (scientists and VIP's) staying at the Site B Visitor's Center on the beach. Signs read, "Please watch your step," and "Welcome to InGen's City of the Future!"

It is surrounded by a high protective wall, intended to keep roaming dinosaurs away from disembarking passengers. Walking further on, players will eventually be forced to encounter wall, as it encloses the entire terminus area.

The gate in the fence should be huge and exciting, like the big ones in the Jurassic Park film (see photo ref, jurassic_gates.jpg) -- not exactly the same (having it say "Jurassic Park would probably just confuse players,) but in the same spirit. Hammond built it that way to impress his visitors, and it should also give players a thrill to pass through it.

The gate is locked fast, by a bar on the other side. However, observant players will notice that the door is held in place by hinges, whose pins can come out (see hinge.jpg). Knocking out the pins is the key to proceeding – this will be slightly unrealistic, but hopefully not too bad. They should be in plain sight, but not all reachable from the ground – players will need a pole or a long stick to get the top ones.


Monorail Track

The monorail was never completed – InGen put up the supporting piles and a few sections of track before abandoning Site B entirely. There should be some grandeur to this ruin – decaying pillars rising through the jungle.

So what the players find is an overgrown dirt path, barely visible now, but marked by tall concrete pillars, and occasional pieces of construction materials or equipment. At the time of its building, the path of the monorail was cleared of major trees, but the jungle has had 8 years to reassert itself since then. Constructing the track this way will provide a trail for players to follow towards the civilized areas of the island. At times, the player should be unable to see where the path leads – they must just continue in the same direction, and eventually spot the next pillar. In a few places, the actual monorail track stretches overhead. In others, it has fallen down (shoddy or partial construction, combined with the extreme weathering of the jungle climate).

A description of the track construction can be found in monorail sketch.psd. We also have quite a bit of monorail photo reference, in the monorail reference folder. As to the precise structure of the monorail track and supports, it may not be precisely as we've drawn it -- I will leave that to the ex-Disney employees.


Make-out Rock

Rock and Clearing – at the top of a small hill, there is a large boulder with a clearing around it, providing a cool view of the surrounding area. The kind of place teenagers would go to make out, if there were any teenagers, and there weren't any man-eating dinosaurs around. The hill is steep, but in one place, a log is balanced on the edge of a ledge, and pulling the log down creates a ramp to scramble up.

Safety Phone

This is sort of like a police call box – a metal box, with a speaker grill and a big button to push.

Pressing the button produces a few short rings, then a voicemail voice: "Thank you for calling InGen Technologies, creating your future, today! An operator will be with you shortly." Tinny elevator music follows, then it repeats after about 10 seconds, then silence.

Stack of Cans

We'll have a few of these – paint cans, fuel barrels – stacked up, so starting players can have the fun of knocking them over.


Construction Shack

Beside the tracks, a small plywood shed has been hastily constructed. It was used to keep the worker's tools out of the rain when they were off shift. It is little more than a rectangle, about 1.7m by 1.7m, by 2.5m high, and a door takes up most of its front side (the side facing the tracks). The plywood of the shack has grayed and begun to curl as old plywood does (represent in the texture if possible, otherwise just ignore this detail) but it is still sturdy enough to keep Anne out. The plywood was nailed to a frame of 2x4s, visible on the inside of the shack when Anne opens the door.

The door itself is held closed with a rusty padlock, and if Anne hits it hard enough with a board or a stick, the lock will break, allowing her entrance (small hammer, ideal for the purpose, can be found nearby). Inside the shack are just a few bits of debris, including an axe-handle. On the rear wall is a faded map of the projected course of the monorail - this should be a surveyor's map of the lower half of the island, with the town towards its top, marked "Burroughs," and the beach where Anne started the game at the bottom right marked "Landing, 5F, 1988" A red line marks out the course of the railroad between the station (see the Terminus area) and the town.

Objects:
Hammer - the personal-sized kind
Axe handle - a piece of wood, sadly missing the sharp cutting bit.
Map of monorail route

First Lifter Puzzle

Here, the terrain slopes sharply up, making it difficult to climb. Fortunately, an abandoned person-lifter stands next to a section of completed monorail. Amazingly, it is still functional – players can turn a switch and start it up. The only problem is, the controls in the "basket" no longer work – players will have to use a stick to work the controls at the base, while standing in the basket. The controls are very simple – on/off, up, down, rotate left, rotate right.

Mayan Face, Jeep

In a shadowed, rocky gorge, a stern Mayan face (see photo ref) looks down on a crashed jeep – two eerily parallel ruins.

The jeep is a standard InGen model, a remnant of the hunting expedition from the Lost World – fleeing in panic, a hunter veered off the path of the monorail, and bounced out of control on a group of boulders. The jeep is on its side, and players can give it a push if they want, sending it down to the bottom of the gorge.

The jeep should be balanced so that you can push it over, sending it crashing to the bottom of the depression.


Fallen Trees

Two big fallen trees cross over each other, forming two levels of walkway for the player.


Still Pool and Rocky Cliff

This is an area off the beaten track, where players can relax and check out our water technology – a pool backed by some picturesque rocky cliffs.

Stacking Boxes Puzzle

An elevated stretch of monorail proves to be the only up a steep incline. We will place some debris around the area – boxes, oil drums, and planks, and let players construct a sort of scaffolding to climb up to the track itself.


Game Trail, Triceratops Encounter

A game trail leads away from the monorail track, just before it turns north. It leads through the jungle, across relatively even terrain, to a sunny clearing, where players can find a lone triceratops, grazing.

Nearby, there is a place where players can scramble up the hillside to a shelf of rock. A log (.7m thick, 8 m long) projects out over the ledge above, and players can pull its end down to create a ramp leading upwards. From there, players should be able to make it to the hilltop.

Mayan Pavilion

At the top of the hill, there is a small Mayan ruin – a 25m by 25m area is paved with flat stones, forming a sort of plaza at the top of the hill, from which players can view the whole area. 4 crumbling columns form a square roughly 10 meters on a side. Players will also notice the remnants of a fire roughly a year old – now just a charred place on the stones. Nearby, under the shelter of a leaning stone, there is a hunting rifle with 4 shots remaining in it.


Secret Beach

In the southwest corner of the Jungle Road area, there is a second beach. It is a rocky area bare of trees, harsher and less tranquil than the starting area. It should be beautiful, but in a kind of harsh and lonely way – not like the idyllic starting beach. An piece of an airplane, perhaps the wing or tail, has washed up on the rocks – a remnant of Anne's own vehicle.


House of Cards

(see House of Cards.bmp)
Players following the monorail path will find an impasse here – a depression followed by a shelf in the terrain. On the ground in front of them, 5 large sheets of thick plywood, leftovers from some temporary mini-shelter. To pass, players have to build a small platform out of the plywood, by leaning them against one another like a house of cards.

This is one of those puzzles we'll just have to try out to see if it works)

Albertosaur Chase

Walking down the hill toward the Final Exam area, players will hit a trap which will create an Albertosaur nearby. We will try to motivate the albertosaur to pay no attention at all to the player, but simply charge past him across the path and keep going, moving much faster than Anne is capable of – the idea is to startle players and give them a mysterious brush with a dinosaur, but nothing more at this point.



The "Final Exam"

To climb the ridge out of the Jungle Road area, players need to climb up onto the intact section of the monorail, and walk along it. This involves solving a series of puzzles, which will teach the player about our game and our interface, and make sure they are ready to play the more difficult sections ahead.



Getting onto the Monorail

There is a portable one-person construction lifter here, the same kind people have been using to paint the DWI building recently (or whatever they were doing) – see lifter.bmp. It starts out in the extended position, high enough to reach the monorail track, but when players step on it, their weight causes it to collapse, gently. When they get off, it returns to its extended position. Players need to learn to brace it in position before getting on, using the boxes and wooden debris found in the area.
There is also a switch in the basket, which unlocks the joint at the base, allowing the arm to swivel.

Along the rail

Proceeding along the monorail, players will encounter a series of small obstacles:
-- stacked crates and debris, which players can just smash or push aside
-- a construction plywood platform, whose walls block the way. Players must smash it down to proceed!
-- an enclosed plywood or metal platform, perhaps built to protect some crucial operation from rainfall. This lies at the other end of a gap in the rail, preventing Anne from jumping across. Anne must break it apart before proceeding.
-- 2.5-meter gap. Anne can barely make this, with a running jump. Helps teach players their jumping limits. The gaps can be ornamented with bits of rebar or other internal reinforcements sticking out of the concrete.
-- 3.5-meter gap. Anne cannot jump this. Nearby debris on the rail should include: several 4-meter lengths of rebar; a piece of plywood. These can lie across the gap to form a usable bridge.
-- 3.5-meter gap, part 2. This time the tools are different: a heavy piece of concrete, some 3-meter rebar, and some more plywood. The concrete holds the rebar in place, since it can't rest on the opposite edge, and thus Anne can build a partial bridge, and jump the remaining meter or so.

see jungle road.max and final exam obstacles.bmp for diagrams of how these puzzles will be laid out.

Getting down off the Monorail

It's about 5 meters up, too far to jump down. The final 30 meters of the monorail track are not complete – only some of the concrete is there, the rest is plywood. The final support pillar is about 2 meters away from the end of the plywood section – the plywood section is held up by flimsy temporary supports, a wooden scaffolding. See jungle road.max, and monorail end.bmp.

The plywood section and its supports will be built out of breakable magnets, so that it should be possible to destroy the supports, and then put enough weight on the plywood itself that it sags and eventually breaks, giving players a controlled fall, something they can survive.
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Status:
BE-PH1: Released
PH2-IT: Pre-released
PL-SUM: In production

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Re: Walkthrough 1997 Part Two - Jungle Road

Post by LtSten »

I'm surprised at how little discussion there has been, considering that this reveals basically everything that we've ever wanted to research?
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Re: Walkthrough 1997 Part Two - Jungle Road

Post by tatu »

LtSten wrote:I'm surprised at how little discussion there has been, considering that this reveals basically everything that we've ever wanted to research?
Me too, I guess it's because it's posted on the news section.. hm.. I will post it in the first post too, easier to quote
Active project: Trespasser: Isla Sorna
Status:
BE-PH1: Released
PH2-IT: Pre-released
PL-SUM: In production

"...there used to be more benches, but InGen's workers removed them during the evacuation in the name of framerate."
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Re: Walkthrough 1997 Part Two - Jungle Road

Post by Nick3069 »

Wait! What is it this exactly? Most of this this stuff isn't in the 96 build.
Is it supposition of what the game was meant to be or was all this confirmed by developers or is there an other pre-release build that I don't know of?
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Re: Walkthrough 1997 Part Two - Jungle Road

Post by Mickey »

Nick3069 wrote:Wait! What is it this exactly? Most of this this stuff isn't in the 96 build.
Is it supposition of what the game was meant to be or was all this confirmed by developers or is there an other pre-release build that I don't know of?
no supposition... its the actual Walkthrough made in 1997 before/during the games development :)
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Re: Walkthrough 1997 Part Two - Jungle Road

Post by tatu »

Mickey wrote:
Nick3069 wrote:Wait! What is it this exactly? Most of this this stuff isn't in the 96 build.
Is it supposition of what the game was meant to be or was all this confirmed by developers or is there an other pre-release build that I don't know of?
no supposition... its the actual Walkthrough made in 1997 before/during the games development :)
Mickey is right. It's a walkthrough written in august 1997. This is what it say:
A document to help us monitor the question, are we making a game up to our potential? Do we have enough interesting things in the game? Have we fulfilled the potential of the engine, and of our imaginations? Does the game rock? Further, this document serves as an introduction to all the gameplay-critical experiences and areas in our game, so that anyone not intimately connected with the game can have a quick overview of all its components.
I love the line "Does the game rock" haha :)
Active project: Trespasser: Isla Sorna
Status:
BE-PH1: Released
PH2-IT: Pre-released
PL-SUM: In production

"...there used to be more benches, but InGen's workers removed them during the evacuation in the name of framerate."
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Re: Walkthrough 1997 Part Two - Jungle Road

Post by LtSten »

tatu wrote:
LtSten wrote:I'm surprised at how little discussion there has been, considering that this reveals basically everything that we've ever wanted to research?
Me too, I guess it's because it's posted on the news section.. hm.. I will post it in the first post too, easier to quote
..besdies, not everybody checks the main page, however I'm pretty sure most people read whatever new posts there have been on the forum.

All very interesting to see what they had planned, some of which we wouldn't ever have guessed.. Shame.
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Re: Walkthrough 1997 Part Two - Jungle Road

Post by Draconisaurus »

Such an odd, dead silence. It's like having famous fallen heroes from history come back to life and start talking to you, such that they suddenly become like a normal person and lose their allure of unknowability..
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