Crouch Jumping Sucks

I think crouch jumping may be one of the most antiquated and hostile mechanics to still exist in modern Source Engine games. While it's not necessary hard to perform when you understand how to do it, it poses a huge hurdle for anyone new to Source's movement. It's artificial difficulty at it's core. 

If your creating a level for some game where this is a mechanic I'd really recommend not designing routes that REQUIRE a crouch jump to be accessible. Always try and view the spaces you create through the lenses of someone who has little to no experience with the game; and I'm not saying design everything with them in mind, just be sure that there are options available so someone doesn't get stuck in a slightly too deep pit.

Here's a video that shows the issues with designing levels with crouch jumping in mind.

Ugly HUDs - Passtime TF2

 I was playing Passtime on a TF2maps testing server when it switched to an indev passtime map. The level itself was fine but I was really surprised by how awful the gamemode's HUD was. Below is a screenshot taken during a more action oriented scenario. (Holding the ball while pushing with teammates)

Here is a screenshot form a low action scenario. (Sitting in spawn while typing in chat)

The issue with visibility may be offset a bit if you don't play on a 4:3 monitor like me but there is still a lot of really unneeded information in this HUD. 

For instance I don't think there needs to be a message that displays to all player each time the ball is passed displaying who passed to whom. I also don't think you need a reminder of who's holding it at on the bottom bar above the score. I think the actual visual act of someone throwing to a teammate is all that is really needed. Maybe only have a message appear when an interception occurs.

I also don't think this little timeline bar at the bottom displaying where the goals and players are on the level is needed either. During gameplay I never really reference it at all to find where teammates or goals are, I think just showing them world would be a better approach. A 2D line like this doesn't represent 3D space that well and can't convey the positions your team may be taking. It's really unneeded and just adds a huge amount of visual noise.

The progress bar at the top is also very weird. I think it's supposed to convey when a bonus goal is open but in all my screenshots it's always at that progress level. Again I think something like this could be represented in world than in a HUD element. It's also not really clear what it's supposed to represent.