Amateur Work

Counter-Strike: Source

Dust PCG (de_dust_pcg)

Dust PCG was built as tandem with a two-part tutorial for PC Gamer UK magazine, teaching the basic principles of Counter-Strike: Source level design. As my first foray into CS:S mapping, it acted as a learning experience involving almost all the required entities and technologies needed for a modern CS:S map.

With Dust PCG it was important to maintain the simplicity of the Dust series whilst also adopting the new style and sheen that CS:S brought to it. Whilst Dust PCG draws very heavily from Dust and Dust 2 in both arrangement and theme, it does introduce some new elements and occasionally stutters with the theme.

Counter-Strike

Castle (cs_cstle)

Castle was originally going to be my next map for Counter-Strike after the suprising success of Dust. I remember asking MacMan (Chris Ashton) for some more 'Castle-like' textures, which he promptly delivered and again amazed me with the quality. I had fairly big plans, stretching out to a hill, lakes, and TV broadcast trucks which would act as a terrorist bomb target.

Naturally, it fell flat on its face. I didn't have textures for broadcast trucks, nor the inspiration or reference to create a castle. The result was an oversized mass of grey which I was immensely proud of, but didn't meet the stringent requirements to become another official CS map. Days after the map being rejected, I produced Cobble using the same textures and a very different style, which has been in CS ever since. Castle was later tidied up and released for free to anyone who wanted it.

Fact (pa_fact)

Fact was the child of an idea that came after armoury entities were added to CS, allowing level designers to place weapons around the map instead of letting players buy them. My aim was to create a small and tight map using custom textures and restricted weapon choice. In particular, the weapon selection was chosen in an attempt to balance it out - CTs nearer the Terrorist end of the building were not given explosives or any weapons that could mow down the Terrorists by shooting through the only wall separating the two spawn points.

This type of gameplay was called 'Prepared Assault', hence the map name prefix. It turned out extremely popular for very small and entertaining LAN games, and was publicised by Gearbox Software along with one of their own CS maps.

Bridge (csde_bridge)

Bridge was my final foray into mapping for Counter-Strike 1.6. It was originally intended partly as fun to entertain my housemates for the small 3 versus 3 matches we held, hence allowing me to get away with lots of things that I wouldn't do in a 'serious' map. In some ways it draws inspiration from Quake 2 CTF and Unreal, with colour-coordinated symmetric halves, lightning, thunder, rain and over-saturated lighting.

Half-Life

Charred Chaos

Charred Chaos was my first (and last) deathmatch map for Half-Life. Reviews ranged from mediocre to good, each time salted by the success I had with Dust, and in the end it was just a bad map. It suffered from lack of pre-planning, lots of quick-fixes, half-baked ideas and not enough variation.

ETC

ETC was my first major release for any game, having been mapping for four years. I was 16 at the time and had just finished secondary school, although I had been working on the missions since Half-Life's release. It did incredibly well, despite its numerous flaws and dodgy design, resulting in several interview requests for various game companies. The mission lacked story and any real purpose, but succeeded on being consistent and different compared to the other missions that had been released.

ETC 2

ETC 2 was the result of a long and convoluted development cycle, which started soon after ETC got good reviews and finished two years later. My aim was to create a continuation from ETC, but employing more interesting gameplay and better level design overall. In particular, there was a desire to introduce set-pieces, big moments, and some non-linearity whilst always retaining the ambience of Half-Life.

For the most part, the reviews were extremely positive and I feel I generally succeeded in delivering a fun single-player experience. At some points, there is some peculiar design (particularly later on), but there are many parts that I remember very fondly due to the time and thought I put spent on them.

ETC 2 certainly took more work than ETC, requiring me to map, texture, model, program and compose sounds. Additional voices were provided by Mike and Pete Chu helping maintain the HL ambience whilst also helping provide a sense of self-mockery.