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Level Layout and Planning

The map is separated out in three sections, with two capture points per section. Every section corresponds to a different Round. Every time BLU team captures all points in a section, it continues on to the next section. If BLU captures all 6 points, or RED successfully defends, the teams switch and start again from Round 1.

The map was originally planned to be a territorial control map, but the theme and the concept of fighting along a river worked better with the linear progression inherent in the invasion game type, so that was changed early on.

Round Progression and Class Roles

The map progression is based on the invasion theme. As BLU advances forward past each point and through each round, they get more avenues for attack, but RED gets more defendable points. The idea is that all the possible attack routes won't matter if BLU is disorganized, and the fortified points won't make a different if RED is disorganized.

This is done by giving the points a series of "weak spots" that can easily be exploited by BLU. For instance, in the first round, a Scout, Soldier or Demo can jump on top of the building housing the first capture point, allowing them to fire at targets below. Similarly, in the first point of Round 2, the bottom level of the structure is very dark, allowing spies to sneak in and retreat to hidden areas within range of their primary targets near the capture point.

I made it a priority to allow every class a familiar and useful role across the map. Certainly some classes perform better than other in a specific environment, but overall, they should be playable, fun and useful.

Inspirations and Intentions

The final battle takes place atop a wooden Dam. The original idea was inspired by a level from Goldeneye 64, the Dam level. For the longest time the final area resembled the Dam from the movie. It was concrete and had a road up top. As I continued working my way through the areas of the map, the end transformed. A story had developed for the map along the way, much more complex than what I had initially decided on for a setting.

The Dam would be a brand new construction, utilizing Hydro-Electric power to allow RED to compete directly with BLU's power company, which starts the conflict. The look of this was inspired by very old wooden dams called "timber dams" that are much less common these days. The old dams had a very distinctive look which worked perfectly with the RED style and material composition.

The rest of the map was inspired by scenery I had seen firsthand during my stay in Mason City, Iowa. There were a lot of barns, farms, warehouses and other old, sometimes abandoned structures all over the place. The area was also well known for its quarries that it had converted into lakes. The design of these structures was very much in the same vein as established RED geometry, using slanted roofs, half-roofs, and showing the frame of the structure on the outside.

Assets and Scripting

All the structures on the map were made using Valve's Source Hammer editor. The structures were all created by me using the BSP brushes, which allowed them to be used to compute visibility leafs and simplified the process of creating the level. All other props and textures are the sole creation of Valve Software, I had no hand in making them.

The Lighting of the level was initially the creation of a friend of mine who wanted to practice lighting, but it was all replaced and redone once he decided to pursue other interests. The lighting that is now in the map was redone from scratch as major changes were made to some areas of the map, requiring the lighting to be adjusted as well.

The scripting that controls the round changes, gates, spawn rooms, and so on was made by me before I began full design of the map. After deciding what type of map I was going to make, I made a quick demo map including all the entities and triggers I would need for creation of the map. I needed to make sure that I could do the technical aspect and that what I wanted was possible, before I devoted the time and resources to it.

It paid off immensely, as I discovered quirks with the Team Fortress 2 version of Source that prevented some initial ideas from working (a spinning water wheel, for example, can't work in TF2 because the entity is disabled). This gave me time to work and refine the design for all areas of the map based on what was technically achievable. Another example is a plan to have the water rise and flood the map after round 2. While the triggers did work, it looked really bad, and I didn't want the low quality of the water-rising animation to detract from the overall aesthetic, so that feature was cut as well, causing a redesign of the first point in Round 3.

Work on the map is ongoing for map balance; I work on it whenever I can. The overall design and construction however, is finished. Screenshots of the latest version can be found below, along with a small snippet describing the area.