QuadTowers, by Alexandra "Maestra Fénix" Bravo

Description:
Designed for up to 32 players, QuadTowers is my entry for TWHL's Half-Life 25th Anniversary: Vanilla HLDM compo.
A small map that favours a fast gameplay with jumppads, corridors, water and platforms, with preference towards explosive and projectile weapons.

Story:
Amidst the chaos during the Black Mesa Incident, the military, with the help of collaborationists and captured staff, managed to reach Xen.
Determined to stop the alien invasion "by extreme prejudice", they sent squads into this foreign world, to track and bring down who or whatever was responsible for this.
One of these squads came across a human structure on an island. This was a Black Mesa outpost, being both an advanced HEV training facility and a "safe haven" for all survey teams sent. In there, a group of scientists and guards were preparing themselves to help Gordon Freeman in his mission.
As soon as the two groups encountered each other, the skirmish began...

Development:
While I started planning and designing the layout since the start of the competition, only from January I could effectively start mapping, as I was either busy in real life, or depressed. And since my level design workflow always prioritize getting gameplay right first above everything else, visuals aren't as polished as with other works of mine. Especially lacking is the skybox, as the original "3D sky" didn't have a convincing aspect, and presented performance issues. And with limited time, I decided to cut it off and stick to the "classic 2D skies".
On the included JMF file, one can find it on the disabled visgroups ( together with the sky brushwork extension and other ), in case someone wants to continue working and improve on it.

I also had to rework the map a couple of times, as I forgot how limited the entity setup can be in vanilla GoldSrc, in comparison with SOHL or SC.
Originally, each five minutes, one of the towers would "supercharge" a single player that would get launched in it, with restoring full health and suit. But due to triggers not being able to be toggled, it was cut.
The map also has a clunky setup to make sure nobody blocks the doors of the secret room ( as there's no "force door to close" option ) via trigger_hurt, that might pose some problems with a full server.
At first, the external lights of each tower could indicate if a button was pressed or not, but at this current time, it is not possible.
The platform where the long jump sits is solid, because while weapons respects brushes with zhlt_noclip, ammo and items not, and falls through.

Notes:

• There are four buttons in the map, one on each jump tower. Activate all of them in time to open the secret.
• There's not a Tau Cannon in this map.
• Sometimes, the SMG Grenade ammo can start moving from their original placement on each respawn, to the point it might end on a slope, making them hard to be picked up. I don't know why this happens, or even if there's something I can do to fix it.

This content is licensed under the Creative Commons BY-NC License. You must give credit to the author if you use it in your own work. You cannot use it in commercial projects. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0