Klotzki Laby DeathMatch - Map Idea

Do you know these games where you have an area almost filled with rectangular pieces, and you have to move them around so you can get one of them out the "door"? There is a PC game Klotzki that implements this, but initially these were made out of wood; the principle is over a century old.

Now imagine a deathmatch level. You are standing on a plain. Around you are car yards with closed doors; you can enter them on foot by walking a bridge or through a ped access with a traffic blocker (like those that guard some gangster hideouts in Liberty City so you can't enter by car). These car yards have doors, but they open only to a single car type. The ped entrance triggers a (pager or phone) message that tells you which car the door will open for. You now have to juggle all cars being in the way to gain access to the car you want.

Once you have that, you can use another privileged door in another part of town to gain a weapon. Hard puzzles would yield good cars/weapons, but choosing an easy puzzle might enable you to surprise your opponent while he's still in the car yard, in between all those cars that will all blow up if one blows up ;-)

The Klotzki car stores are arranged at the edges of the map, each holding a single car that must be puzzled out as previously outlined. Each car then can enter a weapons store only it has access to (by a car-specific door); that store may be somewhere else along the map edge.

Map center is a labyrinth, with lots of doors to make shortcuts - only these are again car-specific doors, so if a player/car uses a door, the other player can't use the same door. Players have to find the doors they can use, they might even be disguised, though there may be graphical hints (all doors of one group could have the same gfx, the doors for a good car could be fewer/better hidden etc.).

Players could lie in wait behind a door, or in a chase, escape through one (would that work? Maybe the other guy can also go thru once it's open). Also there may be a few places to drive up on the labyrinth walls (fall down anywhere ;-) to take advantage of better connections.

The Award

I submitted the Klotzki idea to Azz, who not only designs GTA cars but also has has an ideas challenge with five categories on his website. Biting my nails, I waited for the email to arrive that would tell me whether I'd won - and there it was!

Subject: CONGRATULATIONS!!
Date: 30.06.98, 15:10:13
From: Azzwinkle@aol.com
To: mendel@informatik.uni-bremen.de

Hi there,

You have been chosen as the originator of premier idea in the category of Cartographic Nightmare in the Get That Azzhole Challenge!

Your idea was one of the most original and definitley the most in depth and realistic ones. 

Attached is your prize, all in a zip files including a readme to tell you all about the other components. 

Well done again

Azz

Attached to that Email I found a ZIP file with my price. It contained a note:

Congratulations,

you're a winner. Included in this zip file are a number of files,

1. Your wonderous GIF plaque stating the fact that you are a genuine winner, for you to diplay on your website or emails, or just to look at and go...oooooooh!!!


2. This txt file

3. The prize.pch

4. Prize.bat

To install your new car just backup your g24 style files then move these files to your GTAData directory. Then run Prize.bat. Then load up the game and go look for a 4x4. I think you'll be pleasantly suprised. What with summer upon us I thought I'd go for a summery feel to the car. Tell me if you like it or not. If you are dissatisfied I'm sure we could find a compromise. ( But it won't be as exclusive as the car you have!)

Just think...only 6 people in the world will have that car...myself, and the five winners this month. Next month will be a different car!

So once again congratulations, 

and thanks for stopping by my site.

Azz

Created by Michael Mendelsohn 19. Jul 98