L5 is the fifth level of Mr. Caliber, the first episode of LameDuke. This level marks a sudden transition from outer space to the Earth-based Neo L.A. It is comprised of two non-overlapping subway circuits and what appears to be either a water treatment facility or an unfinished mall with a fountain in the center.
It is well established that L5 was directly iterated to create Rabid Transit in the final game, as has been corroborated by individuals with privileged access to development files. However, there is also strong evidence that the map may have been forked twice during development to create both Incubator and Babe Land as well. Because Rabid Transit and Incubator share more in common with each other than with Babe Land — which itself contains ancestral features from L5 that are found in neither Rabid Transit or Incubator — it appears that the map may have been first forked when Allen Blum gave a copy to Richard “Levelord” Gray; Blum would have continued to develop Babe Land from his fork, meanwhile Gray would have forked it a second time to create Rabid Transit and Incubator.
Based on sector chronology, the oldest sectors of Incubator, Rabid Transit, and Babe Land all appear to be clustered around a loop-shaped area that resembles the left half of L5:
Loop-shaped areas of L5, Incubator, Rabid Transit, and Babe Land that are believed to be related.
Numerous sectors appear to be related across L5, Incubator, Rabid Transit, and Babe Land, as summarized below.
Markup of the homologous sectors across L5, Incubator, Rabid Transit, and Babe Land. Identical colors mark homologous sectors in each map. Sectors scribbled in white are not believed to exist in the other maps. The green arrow in Incubator is meant to indicate that the out-of-bounds room is believed to have originally connected to the outer ring like the train station on Rabid Transit (which is mostly cropped-out).
[View enlarged version]
Some of the strongest evidence of a connection between L5, Incubator, Rabid Transit, and Babe Land comes from hidden textures that are only viewable in map editing software. Specifically, there is a hidden elevator texture in similar locations on all three of the commercial maps. None of these locations correspond to elevators, but they all appear to have inherited this texture from a pair of elevators on L5.
Pair of elevators on L5. These elevators were erased while merging most of the sectors in this image in order to create a giant channel of water. On Babe Land, the upper balcony on the left is believed to correspond to the fortress, while the upper balcony on the right is believed to correspond to the pirate ship.
The map editing software used to create the maps in Duke Nukem 3D is highly prone to assigning unexpected wall textures to joined sectors. In other words, it is hard to predict which wall textures will be inherited by a child sector that is created by merging two parent sectors. In this case, it appears that the pair of elevators on L5 was erased by merging the elevator sectors with other nearby sectors in order to create a water channel extending from one edge of the encompassing railway to another. As a result, the elevator textures were inherited by the edges of the water channel that make contact with the railway. On Babe Land, this hidden elevator texture can be found where the inner channel between the pirate ship and fortress connects with the outer channel. On Rabid Transit, the same texture can be found where two of the train stations connect with the train tracks. On Incubator, the hidden elevator texture can be found in an unused room that sits out-of-bounds, as well as one of the sectors preceding the Nuke Button.
All of these elevator textures can be easily explained in terms of predictable modifications to L5:
- As already explained, the relevant sectors on all of these maps are believed to have descended from a channel of water that extended from one edge of the outer tracks to another, and this channel of water was created by merging nearby sectors with the elevators. This would mean that Babe Land is the closest to the original.
- Next, the channel of water near the slave trading outpost was converted into a train station where the player begins on Rabid Transit (the slave trading outpost itself probably did not exist in the ancestral map). The channel of water on the opposite side was then deleted.
- The level designer replaced the elevator texture on the side visible from the outer ring because, unlike Babe Land, the outer ring is at a lower elevation on Rabid Transit, which would make the elevator texture visible. This is why the hidden texture only exists on the station side on Rabid Transit even though it exists on both sides on Babe Land.
- The level designer then copied-and-pasted this train station to create a second train station at the opposite corner of the map (the one gated by the blue keycard), thereby copying the hidden elevator texture along with the station.
- Incubator was subsequently forked from Rabid Transit. However, the outer ring was significantly shortened, and the original train station was deleted, leaving only the second train station in the opposite corner.
- Although this second train station on Incubator continued to undergo development, it was eventually peeled away from the tracks to create the small compartment containing enemies directly across from the player's starting position. However, before the designer began making modifications to the newly disconnected room, he saved a copy of the original train station so that he could revert to the old version in case he made mistakes. This is why a copy of the old train station still exists out-of-bounds. Based on sector chronology, the out-of-bounds version is the older version.
Diagram summarizing key steps in the hypothesized development history of Rabid Transit and Incubator
The room containing the Nuke Button on Incubator actually sits directly between the two elevators from L5, which explains why it also has the hidden elevator texture. Although an alternative explanation might be that the room itself — which is revealed to be an actual elevator at the start of the next level — may have once been a functional elevator coated in this texture, this alternative explanation seems unlikely for two reasons. First, the elevator texture is fully outside a set of double-doors at a distance that does not seem appropriate for the room itself. Second, the elevator at the start of the next level (Warp Factor) is clearly forked from this room, yet it does not have the hidden elevator texture anywhere near it.
Map
Video
Lameduke (Duke Nukem 3D beta) - Episode 1 Level 5 (E1M5)
Development history
Footage exists from a later build of this level, dated May 9, 1995.
May 9, 1995 Prototype - L5 in Duke Nukem 3D
| |||||||||||||