Posts by skysilcox

Been at Treyarch for a couple of Years as a Game Designer.

It depends on a few things for me. At work, its such a team effort that the process is very long and involves alot of people doing specific things. In my case that is scripting.

I've messed around with alot of planning tools, sketchup, visio, illustrator, grid paper, whatever, but in my opinion the engine you will work in is a better tool for "planning" than anything else as it will tell you immediately if something is too big, breaks line of sight, isn't long enough, and so on.

A typical process for a personal project MP map for me is this:

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SP stuff is bit different as scripting is the crux of the map, but I still tend to just hop in and start making stuff before thinking about it too much, opting to think as I work instead of before. Obviously in a professional environment, so many people are affected by what I do, more planning is needed.

This singleplayer Gears map designed itself as I went, adapting to the combat systems in Gears of War which require mostly flat surfaces with line battles to work well.

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The way I approach a professionally developed map is defined by how the studio does things for the most part.

I seek some feedback on my tiny, quickly hacked together Portal 2 map for the Summer Mapping Initiative.

If your inclined to play it it's here: http://forums.thinkingwithportals.com/d ... &df_id=712

If not:

Spoiler!

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The Cube Beta

Ah much better. No issues with the portal orientation now. That was pretty much my main issue. The cube now falls reliably.

I was able to use a shortcut by jumping right before I go through the portal before falling down from the ceiling (the 2nd crossing) and bounce on the gel, steering hard to the right, and landing right in front of the exit, skipping the last bridge sequence. I sort of like it like that though. It made me feel smart.

Demo: http://%7boption%7d

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Middle Eastern themed KotH map.

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Space station themed TF2 KotH map featuring low gravity.

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Theater themed COD 4 map.

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What was supposed to be a block out for a structure that would be comprised of custom assets later. Lost interest, will never be finished. (Edit: this is for UT3)

Quote from MrTwoVideoCards

Fair enough but you'll have to get past that way of thinking if you want to make great levels.

I grew tired of the Wheatly and Glados dialog since it played such a pivotal role in the SP game. It just felt out of place here to me. I missed the big set piece transformation of the chamber. May need some more visual cues to direct the player to look at it at the proper time. I am a pretty impatient player and grew tired of falling to my death so I gave up. You may need some more cues to let player know where they are aiming to go. As I wasn't exactly sure at first.

Pretty interesting. Needs more visual breadcrumbing.

Demo: http://%7boption%7d

That ceiling plate is still giving me a headache!

I had an issue with the box dropper. The box dropped a couple of times and fell to the ground floor. Then they started to fizzle a few times. Then they dropped as normal. Not sure what I did there. It's in the demo.

Demo: http://%7boption%7d

Some quick feedback, the demo I recorded will probably be worth more:

Some of the corridors with steps are way too dark. The second floor button area took me a long time to figure out because the steps going up to the portalable wall didn't call enough attention to themselves. The portalable ceiling where the bridge touches needs some tweaking as I had trouble getting portals to stick in the right place, often resulting in sideways bridges coming out of the opposite portal or no bridge at all. The water looked fatal but wasn't though I was glad it wasn't!

Pretty interesting puzzle. I like the way you keep building on the "covering the bride with gel" motif.

Demo: http://%7boption%7d

Quote

skysilicox: short and sweet. I don't understand why the door closed the first time though; did the crow turn it off? Shouldn't it have just stayed open? what's the point in making the player go back to push the button again?

Thanks for the feedback! Gave me something to think about. Dramatic tension vs reasoning. Appreciated!

Started late due to travel, decided to switch over to Portal 2 out of curiosity and had a fun time doing it

Download: http://%7boption%7d

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I'm quite digging the Design Test Challenge. Having been subject to a couple in the past, I know how it makes you really consider what is important and what isn't. It is hard, and fighting that perfectionist bent inside can be hard when you always want perfection. It's easy to let a project wander aimlessly into oblivion of no hard constraints exist.

Nice entries. Crunch time prevented me from finishing my scattered attempts. It seems I become more scatterbrained and less able to focus one thing the less sleep get and more stress I have.

Can't wait for the next one!

Great work!

Quote from Sentura

some really cool stuff kfs

Yea. I poked around with Prey for the challenge before this.. I think you have made my mind up for me to use for the next! Awesome!

Haha, been in heavy crunch at work for a few months now, the last 3 weeks being pretty extreme. I've managed to get back up to speed with COD4 compiling system and its quirks and made a couple of test maps. I think I might just jump ship and crank out a quick UDK or UT3 map and call it done!

Quote from Vilham

I have what I think is a fucking excellent idea for a map, but I just don't have the time atm

Ideas are cheap. Execution is expensive

Hmm, sounds cool. I'm not so sure about the constraints/engine choices/restrictions topic. It would be nice to have a choice of engines as this could bring more participants but then it makes it hard to judge, and makes the rules more complex. Needless complexity hurts. From a personal standpoint, I am comfortable enough with Source, Unreal, CryEngine, and the idTech stuff to be happy with it being restricted to any of those alone.

I'm getting the strong desire to pick up something idTech powered again. Its been a long time..

Nice job everybody, especially Reno! This has definitely reignited my interest in making some more simple levels quickly.

Quote from ReNo

VCTF-Glitch by skysilcox

I had a 4v4 game on this, which it handled pretty well, and could possibly even handle more. That is pretty impressive for a level made of 20 brushes! I can't say it was the most exciting CTF map around but it was certainly playable. Part of the problem is UDKs measly weapon set of course, but I did think that having just the single jump pad route between the bases made it a bit of a brute-force effort to fight through the bottle-neck rather than encouraging any tactics. After I'd captured their flag I had no choice but to just leg it along the mostly exposed, fairly straight and option free path home. I reckon a second route joining the bases would have made the level more interesting to play, but it is certainly playable as it stands, so good job. Oh, but that teleporter confused me - sent me through 3 times before I realised why I was appearing somewhere totally different! Looks kinda obvious once you know what it does, but before I did I was baffled! Also, once you've taken the teleporter there is an invisible wall blocking bullets you fire toward the enemy base, which caused me to suicide with a rocket. Oh and trying to jump onto a clearly accessible tower bit from there back toward my base saw me hit an invisible wall and fall to my doom. So a bit rough around the edges there.

Thank you for taking the time to write all of this up! Unfortunately my aggressive brush usage began to give me some troubles near the end.