Fat Man and Little Boy

If you don't have any idea about what my title means, please leave and come back when you finish your history course.

My first burst of inspiration came when I started thinking about how I'd like to see more maps that used a wider range of venues than mining or farming. My first thought went to something more up-to-date, like....an airport! Shortly afterwards, the concept of my Ideal Project leapt into my head, complete with a catchy title:

Airmail

As you can see, it's either a CP or a PL style map, and my thought was that it suited PL gameplay much better. Team BLU advances from low to high security areas through RED's airport to deliver the payload to RED's control tower - with a little bit of finesse, the story behind the mission practically writes itself. To my mind, this map seemed an excellent couterpoint to the typical dust-colored maps that have been released. Fat Man has officially been born.

A few dedicated hours with Hammer documentation forced me to rethink my plans, however. The fact of the matter is that Payload is currently the hardest "stock" gametype to code for, so this level seems to me to be more of a Magnum Opus, if you will. To pull this one off, I'm going to have to start a little easier. Thus is Little Boy born.

CTF maps are the easiest gametypes to set up, since there really is very little programming to do. The biggest issue that I have with the CTF maps that I see (okay, really only 2Fort gets played) is that the map is a literal identical mirror! No thought appears to be applied to the design, to even make a cursory nod to the different styles of RED and BLU bases, outside of some cursory textures. This bothers me, since it seems such a simple fix, and it provides me with the inspiration of my first Real Level:

Power Play

This map is a CTF-style map, but it makes a point to have the two bases be as obviously different as possible: a RED farmhouse and a BLU factory, separated by a neutral train station. The inside layouts will be similar, but the outsides will capitalize on the stylistic differences between the two teams.

By the way, these drawings were scratched together in a couple of days of consideration, and a solid couple of hours of getting it down on paper. This, I fear, will be the easiest bit, as it doesn't really cut into any time outside of those spare minutes in between doing Useful Things. Feel free to try to figure out what all of my symbols mean, I may need the help deciphering them later.