As a developer creating levels for existing games is one of my main hobbies. My newest project to continue learning is going back to one of my first introductions into game design (12 years ago), and attempting to create a playable competitive map for CS:GO. The goal of this project is to go through the full process of creating, play-testing, iterating, and releasing a traditional 3 lane map CS map with Hammer.
De_Backlot is set in a Hollywood studio back-lot, featuring multiple film sets in a variety of “locations”. Whether it be the streets of York, England in Mid, Old timey’ Mexico on Bombsite B, or an indoor sitcom film set on Bombsite A, Backlot’s goal is to provide diverse game-play and visual experiences.
Process:
This project is a work in progress, and as such more details will be added as progress is made! I’ll update this as dev-log until I’m happy with the full release.
Some progress being made on the Bombsite B layout.
Some progress being made on the Mid layout.
Some top-down views of the entire layout showing the iteration of flow, timings, and paths of the level.
After a lot of iteration the map is finally ready for some competitive play-testing, here are some screenshots from around the map.
After the previous play-test it was obvious that some timings were just plain wrong, due to this the mid/second mid area needing some major adjustments. Main points on the hitlist before the next play-test were; Moved mid + second mid entrance back towards T spawn to adjust timings, T entrance to second mid is now connected via the studio arch (rather then A site directly), Added a secondary path to mid so T's could peak from left side of Mid without crossing from the right, Added a secondary path into second mid that is only accessible from T side. A main overview and many other changes were made for this play-test but they are better seen in the images below.
The general play-test feedback was extremely positive, people were having fun, and many of the existing issues from last play-test had been addressed from the layout changes. The main point of interest which was criticised was the A bombsite, both for pushing and re-taking from the T-side. Another point was that mid now feels a lot more cluttered, and the gun fights now felt a lot more random because CT's could peak and hide between many of the points of cover (initially meant for T's to help give some cover to push through the much larger mid now).