Planning a map... with words? Created 9 years ago2015-08-12 14:34:13 UTC by monster_urby

Has anyone ever tried this.

I know some people like to draw out their maps by hand before working on them, but in the case of single player maps, has anyone ever written out their plan instead? I guess it would be more useful for single player maps, so that you can help direct scenes.

The player enters a dimly lit boiler room, an old rusted boiler hisses away while several copper pipes of various condition twist and bend, disappearing into various sections of the walls.

Heading out of the other site, the player ends up in a hallway, again dimly lit and narrow, not intended for heavy traffic. Likely only one or two maintenance workers would be in here at any one time. A couple of the copper pipes from the boiler room emerge from the wall and lead off in opposite directions. A damaged crate containing some outdated piece of machinery has been wedged into the doorway at one end, left there by some disgruntled worker. The other way leads out to the main warehouse.

The warehouse itself is well lit, and somewhat cleaner than the previous two areas. This place is obviously seen regularly by the general work force, so management likes to keep it clean. The reinforced metal walls and ceiling give the place a feeling of security, while at the same time the fans and vents leading to the clear blue sky fill the room with crisp outside air. For such a large space, the place is fairly tidy, only a few crates stacked away to one side to be distributed around the complex later. A truck is parked in one of the three loading bays, engine still idling and the back doors open, revealing several crates ready for unloading. Nearby, a forklift truck sits in its designated bay.

...and so on. I know that had no examples of scripted scenes in it, but it helps give a few elements a little back story, which a lot of maps lack I find.

...Anyone wanna map that?

When I plan I use basic lines and a lot of descriptive text.

I don't plan, I get right into Hammer.

I do this sometimes, but more as a basic outline with some accompanying drawings. I might have to try it in a manner more like that paragraph, with much more descriptive text. I feel like it might be easier to come up with ways to add ambience if you're writing descriptively, as opposed to looking at a dead room and trying to imagine what might be missing.

I don't plan

You should. I'm sure most other people can say the same thing, but I used to not plan out my maps at all, and it always turned out a lot worse than when there was a plan involved. It doesn't have to be a super-static "this cannot be changed at all" plan, but it very much helps to have some form of blueprint, concept art, or flavour paragraph before you go in, so you have a more cohesive vision to work with.
Also helps to prevent you from running out of ideas halfway through or having to shoehorn in entirely differently-styled areas without any coherent in-between areas.

On topic, I haven't done this much, but I seem to recall Valve having released a few pieces of their own written plans in Raising the Bar that Marc Laidlaw got to give the designers a sense of the atmosphere of the map.

Interesting method. I leave the atmospheric stuff until very late in the process. My pre-planning includes gameplay and layout only - though usually with a vague idea of how it'll end up looking in my head.

I used to try to cater my gameplay to my designs - but after reworking so much of The Core, it turns out my strongest chapters all contain content that started as a gameplay idea which lead to the design; not the other way round.

That sounds like a very good Role Play description... Role Play in the sense, all those weeb/internet/fantasy life Facebook accounts, which are fake... But otherwise, I'm sure that'll get me an A in my assignment if I used it.

It reminds me of an old text adventure game.

I had a similar idea for a compo long ago, we would all write one detailed story and then everyone would have to recreate it but of course everyone's imagination is different and it would be interesting to see how all the maps differ yet resemble each other. Or anyone could write their story and then only one would be voted out.

I like that idea. I vote for that for the next compo. It might work vest if there's a rule for no in-progress screenshots.

that is a bloody fantastic competition idea.

The story to map:

The room was completely made of butts. The ceiling tiles were individual butt cheeks, and a giant, crystal butt illuminated the center of the room a spasm of different colors. There were pipes made of butts which were leaking butts onto the butt floor, making little butt puddles. In the corner of the room stood a giant butt with a broken broom handle stuck betwewen its cheeks, and the broom handle was made of butts.

Too many polies.

although not as focused on ambient detail as this excerpt, phillip had plenty of these 'mod ideas' or something. He has also based several of his compettitions around these sort of ideas. I'd totally look forward to a compo with this sort of setup.

How to TWHL:

Step 1: Suggest cool compo ideas
Step 2: Wait a few months
Rinse and repeat.

EDIT: Incidentally, will TWHL4 have more structured support for unofficial/mini competitions? Because that would be neat.

I've tried this but I usually get too abstract. Really though, any inspiration is hard to come by. So jump all over it.

It was a joy to read your post Urbanebula!!! It just inspired me to maybe throw a few levels together and host a heavily modded server with them.

Cs 1.6 or hldm. hmm.

When I made somewhere in time I wrote it all out. Then I sketched the areas and jotted in notes. Maybe i'll dig some drawings up and start a thread or add to this one with them scanned to show my design process.