New Starcraft Campaign: Tales of Halcyon

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Andrea Rosa
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New Starcraft Campaign: Tales of Halcyon

Post by Andrea Rosa »

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Hello to everyone, I'm new to these forums. I have released a new StarCraft campaign, "Tales of Halcyon". It is both a standalone campaign and an unofficial prequel to "Enslavers", I hope you will like it.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/skpwi ... alcyon.zip (5.3 MB)

The events portrayed in this campaign take place during the Terran timeline of the Great War, precisely between "Revolution" and "The Big Push". You act as the Colonial Governor of Halcyon, a Confederate fringe world facing the early stages of the Zerg invasion. Being mainly an agricultural world with very limited military capability, Halcyon finds itself unequipped to deal with the situation, and with the Confederacy in a state of chaos following the Antigan Revolt, any help from Tarsonis seems unlikely. Your daily routine consists of allocating the scarce mineral resources, monitoring Zerg activity and calming scared colonists and worried landowners. All of this suddenly changes when a mysterious wealthy man comes up with an elaborate plan to tame the alien creatures, so to prevent them from overrunning the planet.

This campaign was designed to be played with the original StarCraft. While it is technically possible to play these maps with Brood War, this is considered cheating, since the extra units and technologies would severely alter the gameplay, making all of the missions entirely too easy. If you have Brood War, please play "Tales of Halcyon" in StarCraft mode. Thanks in advance for any comment, I hope you'll have fun with these missions!
Last edited by Andrea Rosa on Mon May 11, 2020 1:04 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: New Starcraft Campaign: Tales of Halcyon

Post by Church »

Glad to see a new face around here, and with a completed project! My computer is almost completely boned right now, but I'll check your campaign out when I can. I'm intrigued by your story premise so far.

Is there any reason you've restricted it to version 1.04? Also, you can work around the Brood War problems by simply disabling those units and technologies in your map editor of choice. I believe it will still be saveable as .scm files. That said, I think everyone has Brood War these days, so I'm not sure it's really that big of a deal.
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Re: New Starcraft Campaign: Tales of Halcyon

Post by Lavarinth »

If you saved your StarCraft key to your Battle.net account (if you have one) it automatically upgrades to Brood War, I believe.
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Re: New Starcraft Campaign: Tales of Halcyon

Post by Andrea Rosa »

Is there any reason you've restricted it to version 1.04? Also, you can work around the Brood War problems by simply disabling those units and technologies in your map editor of choice. I believe it will still be saveable as .scm files.
Sorry, perhaps I misspoke. I meant that you need at least v1.04, of course the campaign will work fine with later patches. Thanks for the advice, I will try to edit the maps with Broodwar's StarEdit (I have Starcraft and Broodwar on two different machines), disable the unwanted units and see if they can still be saved as .scm files.
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Re: New Starcraft Campaign: Tales of Halcyon

Post by adamnesico »

Hi, are you the same guy who made so many good campaigns for Age of Empires in Heavengames?
I played the campaigs about Sumer and Hatti, they really deserve their perfect sore.
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Re: New Starcraft Campaign: Tales of Halcyon

Post by Andrea Rosa »

adamnesico wrote:Hi, are you the same guy who made so many good campaigns for Age of Empires in Heavengames?
I played the campaigs about Sumer and Hatti, they really deserve their perfect sore.
Hi adamnesico, yep it's me. Glad to hear that you liked them. As you can see, I dedicate myself to VERY NEW games, considering that I also design levels for Quake II, eheheh. Many thanks for your compliments, warm greetings from Italy!
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Re: New Starcraft Campaign: Tales of Halcyon

Post by TheMadman »

Well, i didnt played that campaign but good working on it!

Think you can make a modded campaign?
Ya know, sometimes i remember old times when Dune 2000 was rocking, when God of War II was the best game, when
starcraft was the best strategy among everything....

I always ask myself: why many people dont play this legendary games, why they want play new ones?
And the answer is: they don't love games bro, they don't love them....
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Re: New Starcraft Campaign: Tales of Halcyon

Post by Andrea Rosa »

TheMadman wrote:Think you can make a modded campaign?
Hello TheMadman. Not sure about that. I design levels for several games and I usually enjoy doing some modding. However, I have a very purist approach when it comes to Starcraft. I liked its story and the original campaigns so much that I prefer to stay within the standards of Blizzard's map. This is not a dogma, of course, and perhaps in the future I may change my mind.

I've seen that you are currently working on a new Zerg campaign, good luck with your project!
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Re: New Starcraft Campaign: Tales of Halcyon

Post by Eredalis »

This looks pretty good. I mean, really good.
Also, kudos to you for creating this only with StarEdit.
Mission 1 reminds me of an map layout from the Precursor campaign.

Your work is an excellent example how to create a good campaign without butchering StarCraft by using a ton of third-party tools.
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Re: New Starcraft Campaign: Tales of Halcyon

Post by Revolta »

Since StarCraft's engine is flawed in itself, why wouldn't you want to take advantage of third-party tools that allow you to ignore the limitations of the game? Are you saying that we shouldnt bother including custom voice acting, portraits units, etc.? Even Blizzard's own campaign had an awful lot of schortcomings in both story and design so why wouldnt you strive to be betteR?
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Re: New Starcraft Campaign: Tales of Halcyon

Post by Eredalis »

Played mission 1 so far. In Starcraft-mode, of course. :plz:
Pretty tricky. I couldn't remember anymore that the base script (even easy a.i.) could have been such a pain in the ass.
It took two restarts to complete the whole mission. One restart was shortly after the first five minutes, second restart was somewhere in the middle of the mission, when my low tech army was pick to pieces by 9 Mutalisks with upgraded zerg carapace. :-X

But all in all, it's a pretty well designed difficult level. Curious what the next missions will bring...
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Re: New Starcraft Campaign: Tales of Halcyon

Post by TheMadman »

Andrea Rosa wrote:
TheMadman wrote:Think you can make a modded campaign?
Hello TheMadman. Not sure about that. I design levels for several games and I usually enjoy doing some modding. However, I have a very purist approach when it comes to Starcraft. I liked its story and the original campaigns so much that I prefer to stay within the standards of Blizzard's map. This is not a dogma, of course, and perhaps in the future I may change my mind.

I've seen that you are currently working on a new Zerg campaign, good luck with your project!
Well, you can just mode only some easy things like: graphics, text, size.... it's so easy to make at least funny campaign with those one.

About my campaign: exe is not ready yet, only 10% remaining.... (not the campaign maps, only exe)
Ya know, sometimes i remember old times when Dune 2000 was rocking, when God of War II was the best game, when
starcraft was the best strategy among everything....

I always ask myself: why many people dont play this legendary games, why they want play new ones?
And the answer is: they don't love games bro, they don't love them....
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Re: New Starcraft Campaign: Tales of Halcyon

Post by Eredalis »

Played Mission 2 and 3.

Mission 2.
In terms of difficulty (low tech terran vs. protoss), it's a very slightly tangible objective in this mission.
Even if the crystal was harvested, you're be able to steal your way out of this mission the easy way by dodging all protoss reinforcements on your way back home to the beacon. This aspect fit's pretty good in this mission, whether it is intended or not...

But why should be a big khaydarin crystal formation on the surface of the moon of Halcyon? Khaydarin crystals are only on Aiur and as far as I know Schezar has operated on Aiur to steal the khaydarin crystals.

Mission 3.
Phew, that was a unnecessary long-winded mission. :frown:
Why such a big map with literally so much empty space? In this idle room lack way more resources.
You offer an optional objective by destroying the outposts of the Kel-Morian-Combine. But instead the player HAS TO defeat these bases, otherwise there is no way to complete this mission. So it's all in all no optional choice anymore and that big map size with no other expansions inhibts the flow of play... (Maybe a 128x128 size would be more than enough for this map.)

More feedback will come...
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Re: New Starcraft Campaign: Tales of Halcyon

Post by Eredalis »

Mission 4.
The idea behind this mission is cool. Very cool. Kind of improved terran mission 3 of the original Starcraft.
But I have to admit, I couldn't beat the mission without using cheats.
The supply boundary of 90 wasn't the best decision in my opinion.
I had needed some more Marines or Goliaths to defend the absolutely hotspot in south-west corner of the base, but one can't build more units because of that limitation... :(
So I wonder if there's a legal way to complete the mission. (The infested terrans... :huwhaa: NO CHANCE IN HELL)
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Re: New Starcraft Campaign: Tales of Halcyon

Post by Church »

Alright, I've gotten around to this now that I can run StarCraft without it crashing. Here's my little mini-review feedback thing so far:


MISSION ONE: Deus Ex Machina

I never fully understood where the "construct a Factory" objective came from? I recognise you're escorting an engineering team, and whatnot, but the adjutant never specifically said anything about a factory.

The scene where Schezar joins you starts out fine, with Schezar sufficiently introducing himself. However, after basically one line from each of the main characters, the scene is simply over, and it's just taken for granted that Schezar has joined up with you here. That was kind of weird. In fact, on that note, it's bizarre that Larsson is so trusting of Schezar. He doesn't seem remotely suspicious until Schezar
Spoiler
literally picks up the Cerebrate in a Dropship. Sorry, what? In a Dropship? How the hell did he fit that thing in there?
Also in the ending sequence, Schezar asks Larsson to direct a message to the Governer for him. Why doesn't he just speak to the Governer directly since he's right there? Seemed weird.

You have definitely nailed the vanilla StarCraft aesthetic in your terrain and presentation. I kind of question why, but I'll talk about that later - for now it's enough that you've definitely got your vision and execution in pretty much sync. One thing was that this map seemed a bit big, but it still worked fine aesthetically and gameplay-wise... the map size doesn't start becoming an issue until...


MISSION TWO: Bad Moon Rising

Credence Clearwater Revival? ;D

As I was saying, this map is too damn big. There is a lot of wasted space. Also, despite having a long path to the Khaydarin Crystal formation, there's really not a lot of Protoss guards barring the way. Speaking of the Crystal...
Eredalis wrote:Khaydarin crystals are only on Aiur
Not exactly true! According to the wiki, the Khaydarin Crystals were "left behind by the xel'naga on various worlds." Therefore, it is plausible for it to be here on Halcyon's moon. Perhaps a bit of a stretch, but not actually breaking any rules. And not as much of a stretch as
Spoiler
LOADING A CEREBRATE INTO A DROPSHIP.
The only thing I'd point out is that it seems like they discovered it a pretty convenient moment, but I could be nitpicking.

I liked the nod to the Sara system in the briefing. It seemed kind of weird to have Wraith tech and not Siege Tanks. That's about all I have to say about this mission.


MISSION THREE: Unnatural Selection

I noticed Schezar's dialogue is a lot more characterized in this briefing than his dialogue in the previous maps. He has a little more personality. That said, all the characters are pretty one-dimensional right now. We'll see if that changes later, but this is definitely more of a story driven than a character driven campaign.

Also, was "vile aggression" a subtle reference to Laconius' campaign? ;)
Spoiler
"10 minutes until the Cerebrate hatches" is misleading. The cerebrate is not hatching, it's not in an egg or a chrysalis or something. It's probably more accurate to say it's birthing, or something.
In Krauser's line where he's feeling it, there's a typo where he says "strenght" instead of "strength"
Spoiler
when referring to the Torrasque.
On that note, by the way,
Spoiler
it was really cool getting to use the Torrasque that we fight in the last map of Enslavers. You've definitely put a lot of work into staying true to the source material. It's nice seeing that kind of attention to detail.
Also, can you explain exactly what Schezar is talking about in the following line?
Spoiler
SCHEZAR
Hey... What's up, Governor? Those aren't even your citizens.
Very well. Go home, if you want. I was about to ask you the
permission to use Halcyon as spawning ground for my Zerg,
now I'll simply do it. Have a good day, Governor.
I reread it probably ten times and I still have no idea what the hell he's talking about.

Like the previous mission, this map is just plain too big, like Eredalis said. It drags on way too long and there is a lot of unused space. It really feels like a waste and hinders gameplay.


I'm beat right now, but I'll return to playing this later (maybe later today) and let you know what I think of the next three missions.
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