We are in May, spring is coming, the birds are shining, the sun is singing and of course, the maps are flourishing on the CS:GO workshop. We selected 5 maps for April that we will briefly introduce to you and then let their creators give us a statement about its making.

Map creator : Deh0lise

Release date : April the 22th, 2014

Here is what Deh0lise wanted to say :

After rushing (7 days) de_rails for the CEVO/GB contest its development got stopped after few experiments, until recently. I retook my original idea, a night map with huge bomspots. That was my first intention, but had no time for the contest (I even used de_rust assets for it), so now that I had spare time I just did it. As inspiration I took many concepts from other maps we love but avoided their flaws: think of aztec or cbble big bomspots without choke points, or the Z level gameplay of nuke without having to move your mouse two tables away to look up (v.g entering door). And the same I did regarding night, I avoided the most common flaw: dark & dim light. I used blue light and a good level of environment light, added a custom skybox and mixed it with snow. Despite the night, the map is readable as a day one, snow offers a good contrast, and the light is jut blue in the outside and warm in some key areas (mostly entrances, but you can see a beam pointing A). In relation to gameplay. I tested smokes for snipers, different strategies and exploits, and added some key gameplay elements that will give variety to the rounds: holes in rails; vent to flash/smoke/fake post-plant route; window on door for retakes; trick jump in B... To sum it all, starting from ideas we all love I looked for the common flaws and solved them, by now Rails looks good and plays better!

Workshop link : Here

Map creator : Rick "Catfood" Van Veen

Release date : April the 22th, 2014

Let's talk about Tulip, Catfood's new map (we already talked about him back in January, with his map Crossfire). Once again this is a defuse map, this time taking place in Amsterdam, his home town. There are various typical elements in the map, such as a tramway station, a church, various shops,...

Tulip may be suffering of a lack of work on details, the trees being quite strange and some textures being not detailed enough. Catfood may be still working on his map and can mature these details. Nonetheless, the atmosphere is here, and the connoisseurs will immediately recognize Holland.

The narrow hallways and the size of the bomb points makes me think of Inferno. I think this map is quite similar regarding gameplay, shooting distances and the choice of weapons. The layout is quite traditional but uses its environment wisely to make players doing zigzags in every directions.

Tulip is a great map, which proves once again that Catfood is one of the best CS:GO mapmakers and that he deserves to be selected for Valve operations (which still hasn't happened despite the 4 great maps he created).

Unfortunately we haven't been able to get a statement from Catfood.

Workshop link : Here

Map creator : Che "OrnateBaboon" Hamilton

Release date : April the 18th, 2014

Piazza is a map from Che Hamilton (AKA OrnateBaboon), Skybex's brother whom we talked about in February with his map Pakistan. Map making can sometimes be a family affair! This map is participating to the Cevo/Gamebanana mapping contest which will end June the 9th.

Piazza seems to take place in an old city of Italy, full of bell towers and coloured houses. OrnateBaboon used textures from Italy, Inferno and Cobblestone to create his own atmosphere, and it's a good and enjoyable mix. Some areas would have needed a little bit more work, but there is nothing graphically alarming. Piazza is a pretty map (you have to know that it's not finished yet).

Its gameplay is traditional, the bombsites are of average dimensions, there is a long middle similar to de_dust2 with a catwalk. Some areas of the map made me think of de_inferno's banana or de_mirage A ramp. It is, to my opinion, a good thing as the map manages to keep its own identity. Congratulations to OrnateBaboon for his first CS:GO map!

Here is what OrnateBaboon wanted to tell you

The map was originally set in Venice Italy, but I quickly found that trying to add a lot of the things you would expect to see in Vencie were not things I could get working well for gameplay. Bridges, canals and tallbuildings are all things that look great visually, but when put into a Counterstrike map, become hard to reconcile with conventional gameplay.     The way the map looked like during the first playtests . Through a process of playtesting and iteration, the map has changed significantly, and I would say is currently around 60% complete. I got a lot of useful feedback from releasing the map on the workshop, and I am currently working on the feedback to make the map look and play better.I am aiming for a fun PUG map, that is also competitively viable. I will be updating the map regularly, so please watch it progress on the workshop!

Workshop link : Here

Map creators : Cory "The Horse Strangler" De La Torre and Jordan "HoliestCow" Gentry

Release date : April the 15th, 2014

This map was created by the HoliestCow and The horse Strangler duo who created the map Blackgold where the terrorists had to destroy an oil rig in the middle of the ocean. Today they created a new experience with Import, a commercial port where the terrorists have to destroy the government shipments. Graphically speaking, this map looks a lot like Norsahr canals in Battlefield 3, with a lot of similar elements such as the containers, the cranes, the concrete floor. The visual experience is great, and so are the details. I would tend to say that this map looks too much like Blackgold, with lots of elements painted in yellow to give the map a strong graphical identity. Lots of models and textures have been taken from BlackGold, probably to finish the map faster to have a chance to get selected for Valve's next operation.

The gameplay adapts itself to the environment. Like on Blackgold, containers are defining paths the players have to follow. Even though the map is enormous, the playable area has classical dimensions. There is a bit of vertical heights to make it a bit more distinguished, and it works out pretty well.

Import is a pretty map which is enjoyable to play, but it seems a bit rushed to be selected for Valve's next operation, to the detriment of some gameplay and environment aspects.

HoliestCow game us this statement :

After releasing BlackGold, Horse and I wanted to create a more “grounded” environment, however, one with the same goals as BlackGold had: Mostly made up of custom content, a strong location, and something that visually incorporated strong colors. We started looking at shipping yards and felt that type of location had a fun mix of open and tight spaces. We’re also big fans of the Battlefield series, specifically battlefield 3 played a large role in inspiring us to try out a dock environment similar to Noshar Canals. Import from the ground up was built with competitive play in mind but with the described location, that posed a unique challenge. Creating a map as wide open as a shipping yard and have it fit Counter Strike’s playstyle was quite difficult to balance. Through playtesting we eventually arrived at a version that felt much more fast paced while maintaining a strong visual atmosphere. Thanks to MapCore for playtesting and help on making Import as great as it could be.

Workshop link : Here

Map creator : Conny "vstmn" Vestman

Release date : April the 18th, 2014

As per usual, the last map is a fun map : Futsal. This is a Footbal map, more a Futsal map, as you hit the ball in a small closed area. There was a lot of maps like this in CS:S, and a lot of tournaments which Great-Britain teams were winning, but I don't remember seing a single ka_ map on CS:GO.

The principle is simple: put the ball on your opponent's goal either by hitting it with your foot, your knife or by shooting it (but don't kill your opponents). The level is well-designed: there is a score counter, you can choose the size of the ball and also to authorize or forbid the use of weapons. Moreover Futsal is a beautiful map with an atmosphere of private soccer club in an abandoned warehouse. It can seem dumb but this is a funny place to play and it is already among the top 10 most rated maps on the Workshop.

Finally, here are the things Vstmn told us :

Futsal started as a very simple idea. Make a prefab (premade fabrication) with a ball and a scoring system that others can insert into their maps. Nothing fancy, just the bare essentials. The seed to the map started when FMPONE & Volcano released de_crown and I saw the soccer ball placed in CT spawn (before they updated the map and added goals). It was a little detail that brought some fun inbetween shooting at each other. The ideas started flowing and one idea lead to another and the results became its own map. The first contact i had with mapping was for Half-life 1 back in the days when worldcraft was used to map with. PC Gamer had an article series on how you set up worldcraftand how you created maps. Between then and now I have made some maps. Nothing big, but stuff that sharpened my mapping skills one map at a time. When CS:GO was released with the workshop I was very excited to create something with the updated source engine and the possibilities to share it via the workshop. I always liked the idea of creating maps with other purposes then traditional gamemodes in mind, maps just for fun and custom gamemodes. The updated source engine for CS:GO provides a better looking and more possibilites then ever with the implementation of vscript. I'm looking forward to the future of CS:GO and the future of mapping for it. As I currently write this I'm working on an update to the map to expand it in size and add another field, and some more options. So look out for the update in the future!   On the left Futsal on Hammer, on the right a bonus screenshot of a map Vstmn is currently working on Thanks to the community for the support and thanks to vakarm.net for featuring my map.

Workshop link : Here

THE SERVER

For correct playtesting of these maps, you can try them on our casual server (located in Europe), mixing classic maps with maps from our Maps of the Month series. Thanks to GuillOMM and AkiVer for setting this up, and to Crystal-Serv.

Infos : 16 slots - tick 128
Adress : GAME19.CRYSTAL-SERV.COM:27055

PREVIOUS ARTICLES

# 1 - January 2014 : http://www.vakarm.net/news/read/Maps-of-the-month-Janvier/5390/2
# 2 - February 2014 : http://www.vakarm.net/news/read/Maps-of-the-month-Fevrier/5481/2
# 3 - March 2014 : http://www.vakarm.net/news/read/Maps-of-the-month-Mars/5592/2

You can find out all the maps from the Maps of the Month articles in our Workshop collection :

Thanks to Sickness for the translation