Theme:
Close quarters combat in a snowy and recently destroyed village.
Player Goal:
Stay alive and capture objectives.
USP:
CQC, trenches and open terrain. Different from most of Sandstorm's vanilla maps.
Objectives:
Domination mode in Insurgency Sandstorm usually consists of 3 capture zones with team spawning on the opposite sides of the map. I decided to stay true to this approach.
Level Intent & Description:
C & A encourage fighting in the trenches while zone B is located in the middle of the village. Defending B is intentionally problematic. This can lead to intense and strategic approach to combat in that area.
Bypassing B or capturing it allows one team to go for another objective more safely through trenches connected to buildings next to B.
Flanking the objective that is the furthest from a team's spawn provides a strategic height advantage to mitigate the quick response of the enemy team. Light green areas indicate heights on the diagram.
Objectives:
Checkpoint is a SP/COOP mode where players assault positions in order and defend them against counter-attacks from AI enemies.
Level Intent & Description:
I had to rethink my objectives a little bit to allow for AI spawns outside of player vision. Therefore, I added a new area for the player spawn not far away from one of the original spawns. That older spawn was converted into objective A.
I have added craters and thick bushes in-between player spawn and A to allow for more cover after community feedback that I got.
Fighting over objective B & C is intended to be done in two approaches. The trenches provide decent cover but the player must be prone or crouched to use them while houses next to the objective provide an option to cover teammates that are capturing the point.
However, a common point of feedback I got was the size of the map. My original intention was to build the map for the Domination mode and then expand it. Increasing the size of the playable area while keeping the layout quickly became problematic. For my next map, I will take that into consideration. I will design a map that will prioritize game modes like Checkpoint and Push that require a larger playable space to see if converting or limiting player space for other game modes would be a solution to my issue.
This project also introduced to me to Insurgency Sandstorm SDK which was based on Unreal 4. I got more proficient with a landscape tool and generally improved my skill at using Unreal. Working with existing systems presented a challenge as the information on modding and SDK related issues was present but scarce. I will also keep that in mind for my future projects.
