Graveshift

 Introducing Graveshift! A medieval CTF map for TF2!  

Story: Two opposing mausoleums have been set up as listening posts, recording all the comings and goings from the other team's graveyard. Break in, steal the intel, and find out what exactly they've discovered...

I started the layout for this map last year for a Halloween mapping contest. During that contest I got the layout pretty final but didn't have enough time to actually artpass the whole thing in time for the Halloween update deadline. Sat on it for a year and started working on it again earlier this month, got it finished in time this time.

Here's a few screens. 

Still have a little bit of polishing to do for parts of it, but I'm pretty happy with where I have it now. 

Here's a link to the workshop page if you want to check it out.

TF2 100 Player Layout Idea

 

Quick lil sketch idea, layout would have 3 main mid areas leading all leading into a final cap zone. Game mode would be DoD style 5cp, all the points start unlocked and teams have to control them all to win.

Karesansui WiP a6a

- Redesigned spawn area to enable better player flow to other routes.

- Changed routes into mid to hopefully help players rotate

- Changed some height near point so movement onto cap area feels more gradual.

- Managed some sightlines.

- Added a few detail props.

The main issue of the previous version was player routing. Players coming from spawn tended to only use one route to mid, leaving pressure off of half the map and making defending a bit easier than it should be. The was happening due to the old spawn being angled in a way that encouraged players to use the route that was closest to them. The fix was pretty simple, I repositioned spawn so that all routes equally far from it.

The other changes to the map aren't as big, mostly just minor changes around mid to hopefully make it play a little less awkwardly.

View from new spawn

Karesansui WiP a5

 Been working on this Koth map for TF2. Main issue with the layout so far is that mid plays very defensively for the enemy team. I think I might have gotten it into a state where it might not be so hard to attack, waiting to see how it playtests.

If mid plays well I'm going to focus more on some of the routes into it. The spawn area feels super underdeveloped right now, just flat with limited options for defending from forward holds.

I really like the overall layout though; I have a bunch of little hills and caves and I like how they interlock into mid. Kinda want to enable more scout movement too, I had a cool double jump to high ground route but I think I may have unintentionally removed it in this version.

Here are the current screens.

Chaos Canyon Writeup

Chaos Canyon is an asymmetrical control point map for Team Fortress 2 where teams start with a randomly assigned base. To win teams must hold a majority of control points on the map or take control of the enemy team's base.

My idea for this map was to have the points be situated in a circle, with each point having an attacking advantage on the other.  Basically, something like the graph below.

A can attack both the B and C points, but it has an overall advantage while attacking B. My idea being that teams wouldn't have to split themselves between the two fronts, as a few players can defend while the rest focus on attacking.

Rather than sketch out a layout on paper I just went into editor and started blocking out spaces until I felt they were interesting enough to navigate and play on. The first iteration of the map looked like this.

The main issues of this early version had was awkward point design of A and routing between points, the basic layout was there but it needed refinement. The focus of the second update was redesigning A  to make it more defendable as well as make it overall less weird to play on.

I also focused on making some of the routes between points more interesting. Height was added between A and B by having snaking cliffs reaching through the route, and a route that reached into a high ground area for A players to attack B from.

An issue that I was having with the map at this point was long stalemates, most of which stemmed from B point being really easy to hold. To fix this I completely redesigned B and the routes leading into it. Overall it was an improvement, visually it looked better and gameplay was more interesting. 

Between these versions I also did some re-theming of the map from a desert environment to alpine.

Finally having A and B in states where the gameplay felt good, I turned my attention to C point. C point never really played badly, and I thought the valley it was built in was interesting, however it caused a lot of flow issues. Players spawning at C tended to only attack A, as the A route was immediately evident while leaving spawn.

The only solution I could find to this flow issue was completely redesigning the entire point.

After some more playtesting and iteration I finally got the map into a final state where I felt the gameplay worked. Most of the changes between the previous versions and this were related to overall scale of the spaces and streamlining pathing between areas.

Karnak Detail Pass

Did a detail pass on my map, here are a few screenshots from the new version.

Karnak King of the Hill

 This is a simple little map I did for the TF2 Summer Update. The layout of it is simple, maybe actually too simple, but it plays pretty alright. Time spent from start to finish was about a week with most of the time spent gradually updating the art pass. I'm pretty much done with it, but if I were to keep working on it I think I'd focus on getting more custom props done, maybe little breakable pots scattered throughout the map. 

I have it uploaded to the steam workshop, which you can find here.

I also have a vmf posted for it up on the gamebanana page here.

NEW YEAR 2023

 

RESOLUTIONS for 2023:

Work more.

Get more maps made.

Help to ship a product.