Deadwater

Starting with a simple paper map. It has the feel of a small shooter map on a rig in the middle of the ocean. In the middle of the map, there would be a high-valued weapon that would spin inside a crate, making it a hot zone for players. References included small maps such as Nuketown and Rust from the Call of Duty series, which revolve around a 3-lane structure design. 

Taking the original design from the paper map and adding another lane off to the side allowed players to have more options when they spawned in. This allowed players to maneuver around the map with ease and possibly get the flank behind the enemy. This also allowed the enemy team not to have an easy spawn-kill situation. I finished the graybox section by adding weapon drops, health packs,  and jump pads, each one being symmetrical to the other for fairness. This allowed for the game to be faster since players would have easy access to weapons early on after they leave spawn. 

Swapping the houses the players spawn in to a fenced area was a way to make the map feel bigger. It also added the element of seeing where players were at on the map at any given time. Working with the environment also added a new tone to the overall map. There were multiple versions of the final product, each of them with changes to the skybox. After revisions and testing, people liked the more vibrant sky variant with hues of purple and stormy. Each version allowed the level to showcase the colors the lights gave off. To add to the uniqueness, there are small ducks that are watching the players fight, a small nod to smaller easter eggs.