DM-Nightwatch - WIP

DM-Nightwatch in a 2-4 player deathmatch map in UDK. Due to UDKs limited item set, I kept the map small and made the power ups available (a Shield Belt and a UDamage) objectives for the players to fight over.

Something I wanted to concentrate on when making it was making sure the players come into contact with one another regularly. The map is made up of a couple of different looping routes running against one another with meet up at the above open area. Both route take players past a weapon, health pickups and a power-up.

Items are placed in a way to guide players into these loops. This Shock Rifle is here to encourage people to go down the nearby corridor.

The power-ups have been placed in enclosed alcoves to make them riskier to collect. There's less space to move about and make a larger target for a player wielding a rocket launcher.

The pillars around the outside and the fountain in the middle make sure that the players in the main area keep their distance from one another. Having lots of small pieces of cover means players will be constantly moving around trying to escape their opponents line of sight.

During the small amount of playtesting with bots I’ve done, most of the fighting took place around the chokepoints of the main area, with the corridors behind them and the staircases apparently reserved for backing away from confrontation. Personally, I would prefer the whole map to be used for fighting. I’ll try to do this by adding another open space behind the middle stair case (pictured), and move the maps UDamage to there. But this might change how the loops flow, and discourage people from climbing up the staircase to collect the Shock Rifle.

Path node placement still needs work done to it, as the bots look incapable of ascending the spiral staircase.

The next step for the map is adding the new room, and after seeing if it is a success or not, I’ll begin on the art. I'll use UDK assets to start with and if I have time I’ll do some custom textures and models.