The TF2maps 72hr Winter Jam - The Showcase
The first thing we want to do is congratulate everyone involved. There's not a single entry that hasn't impressed us all in some way or another. The final tally is a little more than a hundred entries
submitted or
showcased, making this the biggest event that tf2maps has ever run! And thank you all for being a part of it.
Overall there were: fifty-six maps, nineteen SFM images, eleven textures, seven pieces of art, five videos, four particle effects, three models, two taunts, two MVM missions, one piece of music and one fanfiction. Check out the showcase below for some of our favourites, but first I want to thank the people who made this possible.
Thanks and Credits
Fr0z3nR and
Crash came up with the original idea for the jam, and
Geit has been absolutely invaluable on the technical side of things (including making this post look so nice).
Fantasma's chat bot made the playtesting process run like a charm, and
Woozles and
Hydrogen went to great lengths to set up their server over at the Potato MVM Servers group for an idiot like me to use for MVM testing.
Muddy,
Killohurtz,
theatreTECHIE,
Tekku,
Egan,
Phi, and
14bit all ran playtests for us, an invaluable part of making the maps made as good as they can be; and while I can't mention you by name I want to thank everyone who joined our playtests and gave feedback - you folks know who you are, and the community wouldn't be the same without your help.
The Showcase!
Enough mushy stuff! On to the showcase. Bold Underlined text is links, which you can click for more information and a download.
First up, one of the more impressive maps made and an obvious inclusion:
pd_tribute by
Crash. It's a great, goofy player destruction map, bringing hats to the hat lord, and every one of the many hours of work put into it shows. Particular credit has to go to
Jukebox though, for his great Egypt assets - if they get released, they'll spice up a limited theme nicely.
Of the artworks submitted, my favorite is this stylish purple number of the ladies of TF2, by
Ixy. Apparently it was destined for the workshop as a t-shirt - let us know when it happens
@Ixy because I want to wear it. Similarly stylish is
RayereSS's pulsey electronic remix of the TF2 Theme, which you can find
here. Check out her other work if you like that.
This cartoon is by the excellent
TierraVerde. It's simple, but very characterful, and I love the classic cartoon influences you can see on it. If you like this, you'll also love
this work by
DynamicRobo and
this by
Duplox - both do a great job of capturing character.
One of my favourite maps submitted is
Dawn's Vigil, by
theatreTECHIE. It's an upward-like payload, winding its way towards an observatory, with some great combat spaces - I had a ton of fun as an airblasting pyro. Make sure to check out the brushwork on the telescope - that sort of thing isn't easy to do. If you like the upward style, check out
Anhydrous by
Cytostolic as well.
Another great artwork is
this and its companion piece by
medli20. She's done a great job recreating a tf2 space in the classic styles it was inspired by, a beautiful painterly rockwell-esque drawing. She can't decide whether it's better with or without the characters - I like the version with, for the sniper's placidity compared to the scout's desperate scramble.
Chaofanatic and
Logan McCloud have teamed up to bring us this
icy medi-beam effect. It's some top-notch particle work; you can almost feel the cold at the end of your medigun. Logan has also contributed a
beautiful night-time skybox - great texturing work from an up-and-coming creator.
A lot of beautiful maps were submitted, but this is one of the largest and most fun to play as well:
Okinawa, a gorge-like 2cp map in the japan and jungle themes by
Bakscratch and
Exactol. There's not enough space to show off all of the great ones, but click through to see
Phi's icy detail area, and
Killohurtz's mars-scape, a brand-new unique theme reminiscent of Futurama and classic sci-fi.
One thing that stood out was the quality and quantity of SFM images. It was hard to pick just one to showcase from either
Joshenkstone's collection or
iiboharz's album, but I love the implied cameraderie between this engineer and his sentry. Jos is taking commissions- be sure to drop by his
steam account. There were also a few, universally surreal, SFM films submitted, of which my favourite is
"Ah, Please Mama" by
Ronald_D_D. There's a lot of drama there, and a lot of... well, yes.
Plenty of KOTH and Arena maps were submitted - a favourite of mine gameplay-wise is the excellently-named
Preposterous by
HQDefault, but there are several fantastic others too, including
ibex's journey-inspired
Chime and
Citroos' space koth
Nebula. Also of note is
FrostHoneyJuice's
Undercicle which has perhaps the greatest sawblade-per-square-meter ratio of any map around.
And to finish us off, some other things that definitely deserve a mention, even if they don't fit neatly with any of the things above. Pictured is
Makzutheamazing's Poker Night artwork, which I love - it brims with character and personal style. Mappers should check out
Yrr's handy
Locked Door texture and
HUD Icons, while also watching
Bogdy's guide to what trade maps have to teach us. And last but not least, I'd like to tip the hat to
Adam Wolfe's powerhouse-style map
cp_bronco - it's excellent for an early effort and i'll be watching Adam's career with interest.
A big list of everything submitted can be found
here - there was no way I could showcase everything specifically above, unfortunately, but there's nothing there that isn't worth checking out.
What Next?
Next up is the
Exhibition Game - be sure to check out that link and tune in to Crash's channel next Saturday.
If you took part in the 72hr Jam, we'd love you to quickly
fill in this survey so we can make the next one even better, and if you're new to tf2maps.net keep watching this space. Very soon we've got the end of the Dynamic CP contest coming up, soon to be followed by a Detailing contest, and other events yet to be revealed - we're going to make this a big year.
), but yeah, I didn't finish my project either.
