Another Reality mod for Unreal

Our small team from Russia and CIS

countries (Kazakhstan), has been developing a global Singleplayer add-on for Unreal for several years.

The purpose of our project is to create a high quality mission pack with a certain Unreal lore-friendly storyline, and what is the most important – with the original atmosphere, made in the unique spirit of the game.

With this, our project is not supposed just to be a sequel to Prisoner 849’s adventures. We see Another Reality as the peculiar compilation of the ideas inspired by pre-release versions of the game such as Unreal 97 and Unreal 95 Beta, as well as the ideas of the official add-on, Return to Na Pali.

This is the prehistory of the game scenario:

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…

For now, we have the full scenario, which contains the description of all the 30 levels that are to be made, their game order, which is balanced with the storyline and go together with the events of the plot. We have 18 completed levels and 5 more are in varying degrees of completion.

...

And now we wish to speak to those who have read all this large amount of text and considered that it really makes sense .

Many people supported us and our work on Another Reality project since its beginning. And it’s really great and inspiring. But life’s hard and there’s always a reverse side of everything.

Speaking about projects like ours, made by the group of amateurs living in different cities, it means that the most 1\5 of all those enthusiasts who tried to help us really did influenced the project. And less than a half of them stayed and continued the work permanently.

That’s why our team is always open for new members.

We, the dedicated Unreal fans, see our mission in giving you just a little more UNREAL, you – those who really appreciate the unique spirit and atmosphere of this game. And we believe that there are always those
who can share our thoughts and who are ready for giving up some free time and energy to an affair that is truly sacred for unrealers like we are.

But there’s one important thing about the potential AR team members:

THEY MUST SPEAK RUSSIAN.

Yes, unfortunately this is necessary. This text is in English, and the add-on itself is made for English-speaking players too – all thanks to the two people of our team who are not only engaged in different sides of project developing but also can speak English. They can make our communication possible but it’s not enough for successful work, and the lingual barrier will inevitably cause too many problems.

Anyway, feel free to ask any questions, leave comments and feedbacks – this won’t be a problem.

And if you CAN speak Russian and want to join us, then we suggest you to take one or more than one of different duties.

Of course, the basis of every mission pack is level building. Only three of us are the authors of all the levels that are done or are in production, though the most of people who had ever been in AR team
somehow tried to make levels too. And besides, lately, none of us can do level design regularly anymore. So, every mapper will be a great addition to our crew, and a great help to the project in general.

We also need programmers and Unreal Script experts.

We welcome every talented mod maker. And be sure that the hard work will be estimated at its true worth.

Those who decided to try himself in Another Reality should also familiarize themselves with Unreal 95 and Unreal 97, ‘cause these are also the sources of our inspiration. (Not to speak about Return To Na Pali – I believe everyone had played it)

And just a little bit more info.

Since patch 227J from international Unreal-community had been released, we decided to make our add-on playable only on Unreal Gold version 227J and higher (earlier we had some thoughts about v.436 and Unreal
Tournament).

But anyway we don’t reject UT and UGold v.226 as the tools of development. Editors included in there are well tested and make us a kind of insurance when we test other editor versions.

Naturally, for testing the final results, every team member must have English version of Unreal Gold version 227J and higher.

And in addition I want to say that the probability of beginning and further development of this project would be extremely little, without the existence of this site - Old-Games.ru. This resource, not
only gathers together many tireless enthusiasts and followers of classic games, ready to assist each other in word and deed, but also inspire them to the creative exploits.

Also, we wish to thank Unreal-Level.ru for helping our skills in Unreal Engine 1 and Unreal Editor v.1 and 2 increase.

Well, that's all.

I hope you'll enjoy our work and feel Unreal, playing Another Reality.