zi_woods

I've been making TF2 levels on and off since roughly the age of 14. As a result of this, and my position within the TF2 mapping community, I was offered the prospect of joining a dev team with the aim of creating a new custom gamemode for TF2's Scream Fortress update: Zombie Infection. The resulting map of mine for that project is this, Zi_woods.

Each member was tasked with making a map to fit the gamemode. The gamemode consists of 2 teams, the Humans and the Zombies. The Humans have to hide away in the map and defend themselves until time runs out. The Zombies have to turn all Humans into Zombies by killing them with their fists before time runs out. Zombies continually spawn throughout the round.

Knowing the gamemode's theming, I started with the idea of "a map set in some dark woods" and went with it. Team Fortress 2 maps generally have a hard time portraying dense forest so I decided it'd be a fun challenge and something that would let the map stand out.

My initial guiding principle for the map's gameplay was that I wanted to have a map that played slightly differently every round. To fulfill this, I tried to incorporate a variety of different kinds of combat spaces. So I ended up with a hill, a shoreline, and lake.

Iteration 1

The map at this stage consisted of 3 main spaces, the top of the hill, the shoreline, and the lake.

Zombies spawn in 3 places, the Cave, the Train, and the Hut.

With roughly a month to develop the map, I calculated that it would be best to go with a fully detailed map first. As I trusted in my ability to detail spaces quickly if need be.

Feedback

Feedback on the map was mixed. People had fun, but the map had obvious issues.

There were two main points that came from feedback:

It was too easy to shoot down zombies before they got to you due to the open nature of the map.

And the map was too restrictive in where it allowed you to go out of bounds. People wanted to climb on the rooves

The largest problem with the map was the dominance of the strategy whereby players would sit on a platform in the middle of the map and camp there. There they had vision on all entrances Zombies might take to approach them, and enough distance that they had little chance of getting up close, which is the place where Zombies are strongest.

Finally, I figured the map was too small. Humans could see too high a percentage of the map from certain positions. There was little surprise in how Zombies approached you. And it was frustrating for Zombie players in turn as their approach was visible from far away.

I came away with a number of things to change about the map:

Increase its size.
Give more options for strategies humans can choose from.
Allow zombies a greater ability to get up close to players.

Iteration 2

The changes to the map included:

Enlarging the play area. The lake was increased in size and allowed to be explored more fully. As well as this the hill was increased in elevation.
Adding a new building to the lake, intended as a new spot for Humans to hold.
Darkening the map and increasing the density of the fog. As well as increasing the amount of foliage that could obscure Zombies.
Increasing cover for Zombies.
Moving the Zombie's cave spawn to the space above the cave.
Converting the cave into a spot that Humans could hold.

The response to these changes were positive. Players had a much more varied time and Zombies and Humans were both able to win. "Holds" sometimes occured in the mines, sometimes on the platform in the centre, and sometimes in the boathouse.

Despite this, there were still improvements that could be made.The cave was a bit too strong, and the boathouse was often difficult to get to as Zombies.

Iteration 2a

The changes to the map included:

Adding a new route into the cave to make it easier to attack.
Giving zombies another exit from one of their spawns to get to the boathouse quicker.

With these changes in place, I was happy with the map's gameplay. The map was already uploaded to the Workshop and it was now about waiting to see if Valve emailed me to request the map be put in the game or not.

Acceptance and release

Luckily, Valve did accept the map into the game. I received an email from Eric Smith of Valve. And with his guidance I moved forward with getting it ready for release.

Unfortunately, on the day of release, the map was missing some packed content. This was a mistake on my end, and I remedied it within 24 hours.

It was unfortunate that it occurred. But in a way I'm glad it happened, because it gave me experience in day-1 patches.

And with that, the map was in the game. Beyond some small performance improvements within the same week, the map was complete. It was a great experience.

I gained valuable experience working on a commercial project, with real-world clients, players and services.
I worked alongside some great people, including 'Diva Dan' and 'netmuck'.
The work I did was pretty much a 'full stack' in terms of level creation. Level construction, level design, environment art, lighting, and performance. Meaning I utilised a huge amount of my skillset throughout.