UrT Mapping

King's Gambit

King's Gambit. I began work on this one in March of 2011. This would be my third map, but it would end up being the second one that made it past the first playtest. Another map, tentatively titled "Horizon 9", never got further than some cursory walk-arounds.

Yes, the name is taken from chess (a game I have a love/hate relationship with, one I taught myself to play while at a friend's house, 1st grade... dinner time, I did not like their food, so... chess it was). Anyway! This was the first of the larger maps, due to the clan that I was/am in, FSK405, having 30+ people attending our Sunday Scrims. Compared to CrapChute, my first map, this was a pretty radical departure. More of my mapping preferences developed with this one: lots of "chase me!" paths (I call them Bugs Bunnys), tons of elevation differences, and a counter for every benefit. Sniper? Sure! Have at it! But... beware. I also put in Ammo Houses, with... ammo! Ammo closets in each of the four Ammo Houses, courtesy of SleepingGuy. My special spawns; by using spawns to teleport in, I provided a reason for this "island" being used, and the variety of teleports lent themselves to great tactical/strategic play, especially for our Sunday Scrims. With troughs along each edge, I put water flowing one direction, and then a lower torugh with water flowing in the other direction. By using target-pushes, I could then push people down the trough, seemingly being the water pushing them, and they could enter the water at any point and be pushed. Waterfalls with the ability to swim up them, or dive into them. Climbable vines and trees, with a small, solid nub at the top of the trees to stand on.

Finally... Catapaults!!! These were the most fun. I had to build them, and then deal with not being able to animate them. With one out toward each corner of the map, the pushes were aligned to allow a player to land on a safe spot on the roof of each main castle. Of course, I made sure to have them all criss-cross.. to intersect at the center of the map. Of course, this meant that early playtests typically involved some running aorund, followed by 3-4 hours of catapault ridiculousness, with "Let's see if we can get all four of us to smash in the center!" being the greatest, and most rewarding, game.

Fast forward eight months, and following my reconstruction and update of my first map, CrapChute, I decided to revisit King's Gambit, and do the same: reconstruct with proper techniques, refine, add all game types, and perhaps improve. As of today, it is still sitting unfinished, and has had several issues that I have nto found the time to resolve.

Yes, it is a large map. However, with players who know their way around, the size shrinks remarkably. With players who know how to utilize all or most of the aspects/facilities provided... it can play quite fast, and can be incredibly fun.