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Garden Heights

(1/2) Hi, I just finished playing Garden Heights - I really enjoyed it, and it inspired me to do a quick map review.

To start, this map has a lot of things going for it: the layout and overall atmosphere are quite good. It's dark, but not as dark as the screenshots would suggest. The Stand Your Ground objectives are appreciated. I especially like the cavern passages which really help give this map a distinct visual identity - it's more than a simple "garden theme."

What I look for when I play a custom map is an experience that can rival the official map pool. Ideally, I want to fool myself into thinking that I'm playing on something Tripwire just released.

Garden Heights is close, but not quite there. There are a number of small issues holding it back, which reminded me that I was playing a custom map: (continued)

(2/2) - There's a lot of texture popping on the flora. I assume this was done for performance reasons, but it's pretty distracting. With almost every step, the vegetation shifts around in a jarring way.

- While the lighting and atmosphere are generally excellent, the skybox is a little drab. The texture itself probably needs more contrast in the stars/clouds, and I'm curious to know how it would look if it were a bit bluer instead of so brown.

- There's too much body armor. Finding body armor on wave 1 is almost always a red flag for me. There's probably a bit too much ammo as well, but that's more of a subjective thing.

- Janky movement in a couple spots; nothing major. There's a spot on a bridge that made my character get slightly stuck, for example.

Overall, 4/5 stars. With a few changes this map could be an all-time classic. Great work!

A path leading to a corniche with a terrace (and maybe a cafe or bar) overlooking the area would be nice. With a risk of falling for the player from the terrace. (I mean it would not be a dead end.)

Thx man, appreciate it! :)

Noticed you made changes a while ago and forgot to go back and check.
The gazebo placement is perfect! It feels like a Tripwire Official map, not linear at all. Great work!

Saw this on Pathfinder and decided to get it =)

Thank you, I made this as an experiment whether I can get a map working or not C: The gazeboo thingy on the lake sounds good, I think I'll make an update some time.

Like the look and feel of the map and the spacing is pretty nice. But I don't really like that it's a simple loop (maybe I didn't play it long enough and it connects to other points? Only played a few waves.).
Would love if this map had like bridges or something out in the water that lead to a gazebo on the water or something (not necessarily to the center of the lake), but at least something to give it more dynamic play with different pathways, etc...
Regardless, I'm going to add it to my server. It's a good map (from what I played).

: ^)

This was a pretty nice little map, has a nostalgic feel to it. Got some comments on it, buzz me if you want to know more. Keep it up man!