DE_FORTRESS

About:
This is my ”Counter-Strike: Global Offensive” map which I designed for the competitive scene. What I wanted to archive with this map was to create a level that was nor to small and with more vertical gameplay.

Objective:
Bomb and Defuse: Terrorists must plant a bomb at either location "A" or "B", while the Counter-Terrorists must defend these sites.

Story:
“Fortress 89” is a governmental fortress in a remote location in Norway. It acts as military research facility as well as a smaller cache for prototype weaponry.

A group of extremists has just broken into the fortress and is trying to bomb it to halt any further research to be made or if they get a chance; destroy important supplies.

SAS has been dispatched to the site to eliminate the extremists and secure "fortress 89"
Specification:
  • Development: Around 15 Weeks part time for the first version. A few updates has been made since its initial release..
  • Engine: Source.
  • Game: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
  • Mode: Multiplayer - Bomb defusal.
Credits:
  • Leveldesign - Carl Ahlberg.
  • Some of the models and textures was made by me though the majority of the textures and props are made by Valve Corporation
Documentation:
For this project I wanted to create a fortress that was located in a winter setting. I also wanted to explore the “Brutalism” architectural design and include that in the design for the fortress. So I started to gather reference photos etc. of buildings in that category. I also got a lot of inspiration from the movie "Inception (2010)" which architectural-wise was what I was looking for.
The start of the project:
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​After gathering a lot of reference photos I started to roughly sketch down the layout of the map and started to design my preproduction blueprint and then proceeded to block out the paths in the map editor. This was to that I would be able to test how long it would take to reach the different locations on the map. What I really wanted to ensure was so that the map wouldn't be too small. This was a problem I had on my previous Counter-Strike: Global Offensive map "de_dock". ​

​When I was happy with the time it would take for the players to reach the different locations, I added walls and doorways and simple geometry to visualize the final outcome of the map. This also enabled me to playtest the layout with bots and friends.
After playtesting the map a couple of times I made a lot of conclusions. These where the results:
  • The A-Site was too small and had a boring interior.
  • The long outside the A-site was to flat, which is a problem that I bumped into all of my previous "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive" maps.
  • The stairwell on the T-side of the long outside A increased the timings to reach different parts of the map too much.
  • It took too long to navigate from the A-site to the B-site.
What I did to try and fix these was to:
  • Add an interior underneath the A-site which gave a lot of vertical gameplay aswell as a more interesting gameplay space.
  • Add pipes with a platform on the top on the T-side of the A long. This made the outside area a lot more fun to navigate through as well as giving a landmark to the map.
  • Add a stack of crates near the middle of the A long to divide the outside area and give cover to the T's while pushing towards A.​
What I did not manage to fix completely and why:
  • I didn't manage to eliminate the uncomfortable time it took to rotate from A-site to B as much as I wanted to, though I still managed to decrease it. I tried fixing this by decreasing the map width. This did work to an extent but I couldn't decrease it as much as I originally wanted to. This was due to the fact that the visual design of the fortress wouldn't allow it and therefore I had to pick a middle ground.​
Building the A-site:

The first iteration of the A-site was as previously stated too small. This caused a lot of issues. The first major issue was that there wasn't enough space to hide the bomb and defend the location. The second issue was that it was way to easy for the attacking team to secure the site, two grenades was enough for clearing the entire site. The site was also not visually intersesting.
The second version of the A-site was the version I chose to include in the final map. It offered a lot more vertical gameplay and space for the player to navigate through. The space (narratively) also made much more sense. It ended up being a control room/security room for the fortress.
While iterating on this site I got the feedback that I should give it more color. This gave me the idea of color-coding the map. The A-site would feature a red color theme while the B-site would have a blue color theme. This would help the players navigate on the map a bit easier. It also looked pretty okay artistically.
Building the B-site:

When I first started building the B-site I knew that I wanted to build. I wanted a site larger than the A-site and that it was going to be themed as a a garage/storage area.
In the first iteration I think that I made a layout interesting enough for a bomb site, though I quickly came to the conclusion that the site was way to dark. So what I did was to brighten it up and (after adding colors to the A-site) I then proceeded to color code this site as blue. I also added a doorway to the A-site from the back area to improve the flow of this bomb site.
More documentation for this map will come soon.