On my journey home tonight in the absolute freezing cold, the train passed the same old industrial yards, lit up in the otherwise black outdoors via their bright yellow incadescent bulbs and bright white flourescent floodlights. Things like that always look fairly pretty on an otherwise boring journey, and made me wonder if I’d actually got the lighting solution in pa_fact wrong.
I’m battling against two fronts here. The first is the part of me that likes to create maps that look cool and feel real. The other is the designer side of my head, telling me that perhaps gameplay would be more fun if the interior of the building were flooded with light, and the exterior lit very sparingly.
The aim of the interior being dark and the outside bright was such that the CTs would want to stay and hide inside, whilst the Terrorists tried to attack. The problem always was however that CTs would rush outside into the brightness and just gun down the Ts. They could also too easily see the silhouette of Terrorists trying to get through the windows.
Of course, the lighting was never that vibrant anyway, but never the less, that was the thinking….
However, make the interior bright and the exterior dark, and it becomes a very different story. The Terrorists will feel safe outside, but in doing so risk losing because they won’t plant the bomb. The CTs however get the fear of being in such a bright place and such easy targets, but this is balanced out with the risk the Terrorists face by trying to get in. The CTs have no reason to rush outside (given the lighting at the only exits they’ll have), and will need to rely on cover in a very different way.
Plus, of course, I get to play with lighting even more.
Or perhaps there will be no difference whatsoever. Still, worth a shot…