Morrow is a collaboration project for Team Fortress 2 between myself and Squishy(friend, long time collaborator for Jam type events and the main level designer for cp_hardwood, an official Team Fortress 2 map), an attack-defend control point map made for the 2023 TF2Maps 72-Hour Summer Jam. The concept of the map was to have it be set on a hydroelectric dam. Inspirations were taken from other community maps like koth_spillway and cp_conifer, Spillway for the aesthetic and Conifer for how gameplay spaces are crafted while there’s a significant width restriction.

The first thing that was laid down for the map was the dam, as it’s a central setpiece and where gameplay spaces have to be built around. Due to engine and tool limitations, this took longer than expected. At the end, the majority of the spaces were built at an angle with ratios of 1:4, 1:2 and 1:1, which for the Hammer level tool editor is a challenge to design at a rapid pace for.

For the portion I was responsible for, the main goal I had was to build gameplay spaces within these angular constraints and there were variable results, mainly from the rushed nature of a game jam-type event resulting in less coherent spaces than I would have liked. There are however spaces created that I did enjoy making throughout the process.

As a final control point, these spaces were designed with the intent that the defending red team would be able to gain significant advantages over the attacking BLU team through tight choke points and doorway connections between each staging area, with the tight choke points as a mean for RED to easily clamp down on possible incursions that BLU team by limiting the amount of access for them to go into RED territory.

This, however, may have been an over correction as playtesting feedback has shown that it’s difficult to push through these doorways to form a significant backline of staging for BLU to then push towards the final control point. BLU is often pushed into a situation where RED has set up a defense where BLU has no other way to dismantle from.

Overall playtester sentiment for the map was positive and I’m confident that with further iterations this map could be further refined. Until then this map was a self-imposed technical challenge I set for myself within the time restrictions of the event that I’m happy that I’ve achieved.