Silent Fear (NOW FOR LEFT 4 DEAD 2!)

Originally meant to be Left 4 Dead map based off the game Silent Hill, this map evolved its own unique personality with gameplay mechanics drawing inspiration from Silent Hill, F.E.A.R., Zelda - Ocarina of Time, and World of Warcraft. Sounds ridiculous or impossible you might say, and even Valve Software who I visited mid development thought it was a bad idea. But I had a vision which I just couldn't shake.

What if I created a map which had a puzzle element to break the mold of linearity all previous L4D maps had, as well made it random so it was different every time? What if I scripted a world that interacted with the players emotions? What if I created a brand new monster, fully scripted, as a surprise boss fight, with multiple phases you and your friends would have to learn?

Everyone thought it wasn't possible, and they had good reason to believe that. For example some have tried adding scripted boss fights to their maps, but they only had deep knowledge of scripting with no modeling experience. This meant players would end up fighting a monster made up of various blocky walls thrown together to resemble a large dragon or robot. For my map I taught myself how to model and animate in Softimage XSI so I wouldn't make the same mistake. Then there were those who had puzzle elements in their maps, but the puzzles were often too hard, obscure, and generally frustrating to figure out. Once the puzzle was solved by enough players, everyone memorized the solution and blazed through making it meaningless. I avoided these issues by keeping my puzzle a simple find the hidden objects style with a HUD display of progress, and included a small cut-scene that made it obvious what the puzzle was for. I also made the hidden object locations randomized per map load for variety.

The map ended up a huge success, earning an average score of 96 on l4dmaps.com and has been praised as one of the most innovative custom maps for Left 4 Dead.

Some of the features include:

Enjoy!

Sky Dive

This is a hilarious map, created out of boredom. There was a map for Team Fortress Classic that I played once, where the only point was to board a plane, and then jump off once it took off. It didn't make any sense, but oddly it was entertaining. This is my take on that map using the Left 4 Dead engine. Valve made a point to add very long drawn out screams to the Left 4 Dead survivors which worked PERFECTLY for this.

Check out the clip I recorded below of rnadom players joining, not knowing what they are in for!

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