I kind of agree with Shawn to an extant. I dont think anyone would try to argue that you need to pick 1 specific town and only use that for references, but just using "rural America" is way too wide of a net to cast. To me it would sort of be like early games that would just make a level set in general Asia with no 1 specific country in mind. The result is that you got the theme across and most people wont care, but people who live there will be confused by the strange mix of cultures that dont really go together.
Same thing applies here. If you just pull from anything that can be considered "rural America" you'll get the point across to players, but people who live in America will know somethings off. And yes obviously the CSGO playerbase isnt exactly a group to care about how accurate a theme is but I dont think thats an excuse not to try to make the theme believable. I think youll get a more consistent feel if you narrow it down to 1 specific state and take reference from there. Everything you've done far certainly feels like a Montana/Oregon type town. You could maybe make Indiana work as well. The main problem im seeing comes from both the houses and the trailer park as presented.
Trailers dont look like that, anywhere in the US. I get that you might just be using a place holder material, but that type of metal is not wasted on mobile homes. Likewise you'd be hard pressed to find a trailer park thats as run down as you've presented but also has a concrete foundation for nearly every trailer. But while Trailer Parks are pretty ubiquitous to any US state those houses are not. You would be hard pressed to find those houses in any rural area, let alone ones that feature buildings like what you've shown. Those type of houses are generally found in newer suburbs in large groups. Not in older rural towns. And yes both of those are nitpicking but as someone who lives in America I know those things dont look right.
Something similar to these houses are about what youd see in a rural area in America.
You cant really take a house from northern Maine and make it work in southern Arizona. Likewise you cant take a house from just anywhere in rural America and expect it to just work in any area. For instance, houses in Rural Montana tend to be flatter and have a wider area while houses in Rural Iowa tend to be longer and have more focus on strong foundation and basement with little or no second story. They are both designed this way to account for the weather that affects those 2 very different states.
Now granted it could be if you threw all the elements youve shown into a layout and terrain they might work better, I imagine there some missing element we arnt seeing that could tie all these together.
I am how ever concerned about gameplay in the haunted house. A 3 story house with multiple tiny windows for people to snipe out of on every floor coupled with inconsistent dark lighting through out the complex will not lend it self to fun gameplay. In my own DZ map I had a 2 story building with lots of windows to shoot from and a darker interior, it just didnt work because people on the outside would never be able to realistically counter people on the inside who could come from any number of windows. Unless the haunted house is the center piece building equivalent to the Kasbah on Sirocco or the Military Base on Blacksite I dont think it could really think its going to work outside of a major overhaul to gameplay and visual design.
In any-case you're a very talented artist and im sure it will at the very least look great when the final product is released.
Would love to see more smaller details!
