Banana Republic

2023

Map Overview

A First Person Shooter designed map built in Unreal Engine. Designed for faster paced arcade style shooter games. This map is has two distinctive areas of the map. You have the banana farm/slums area of the map and then across the river is the grounds of the mansion. The map has 3 long lanes with interconnecting lanes the breaks up the rest of the map.

Walkthrough of Map

Map Timelapse

My Design Process

Part 1: Research and Inspiration

When starting my design process for this multiplayer map I had a few ideas and concepts that inspired me. I liked the idea from the map Rundown from Call of Duty: MW2 of splitting map up with a natural element like a river. I also liked the idea of a map revolving around a drug lords mansions like in Hacienda from Black Ops 4. So I took these two idea to have the map be split up distinctly between the mansion that is nice and pristine. And the banana farm that is being used a business front for the drug lord.

For this map I didn’t use any concept art. I looked up some photos of tropical mansions and banana farms to add a sense or realistic layouts and architecture for both areas of the map. At the same time making sure to focus on the gameplay and flow of the map working the best it can.

Part 2: Map Layout

Once I have a concept and idea in mind for a map. Whether that be through looking at concept art, real world locations or just coming up with a story for a map. I will then start with the map layout by drawing it out on paper.

  • For this map I broke it into two sections: mansion yard and banana farm separated by a river

  • I then decided to go with a 3 lane map concept

  • With these lanes I wanted snipers and rifles to be able to hold the lanes down with certain positions well smg players could roam and control the buildings.

Once I feel confident with my 2D layout I like to start blocking out the map in engine. This helps me a lot to see what the players perspective is. If I have to change the scale of things, add lines of cover, or remove certain paths. A few examples include:

  • One thing I noticed with the design of the layout in 3D was the size of the map. In terms of top to bottom I had to make the map longer.

  • I also had to add another building with the docks to give smg players a location to move through safely on the left side of the map

  • That eventually resulted in a T-Lane that connected lanes well also allowing players to move towards the barn spawn in a different manner

  • Towards the mansion spawn I had to another building in the garage. I noticed that the 3 entries the mansion yard were very tight and would be hard of players to push through

  • For this map I had to find a good balance of having the snipers and rifles be the dominate option on the map, well also making sure the smg players didn’t feel like they couldnt maneuver around the map.

Part 3: Tight Lanes and Solutions

Since I have yet to have playtest for this map a lot of the problems that I have found have occurred from me running around the map and playing against bots. One of the early problems I noticed were some of the tight lanes on the map. Some of those I am fine with being close quarters and tight because they are only connecting lanes in the slums. And it allows the SMG to roam in those areas with an advantage. However where it became a problem was with the lanes that moved toward the mansion grounds. It didn’t give players any flexibility to fight for the mansion area. Or if they were playing CTF, Domination, Search and Destroy or any objective game mode were an objective would be near the spawn. An example of this can be seen on the right. Originally you see a single tight lane heading towards the mansion. The problem is this could easily be defended by one player with a rifle or sniper at a distance. My solution to this was to add another area of interest with the garage alongside the mansion. This adds for another area for players to spawn, use as a flank route, control an objective from. It just gave the players options when trying to fight for the mansion building.

Part 4: Line of Sights

With having such long lanes around the map I had to make sure that some of the power positions and their line of sights could not hold more then one lane by within their pov. An early example of this is when I just had a fence for the banana trees near the water. Now I knew the trees would add some cover but I felt like certain power positions would be able to control the mid lane and have sight over the banana lane. My solution for this was to add a fishing dock building that would act as a safe connector between those two lanes well giving players cover and options to attack several of the power positions.

Part 4: Line of Sights (cont)

Since the power positions on the map are there to challenge each other and control lanes. I understood I had to add secondary line of sights where players could challenge those positions. Whether it is using that dock building to challenge the player in the mansion window. Or using the mansion fence line to challenge a player on the slums balcony. It helps keep those power positions in check because the players in those positions need to be aware of other areas other then the lane they are trying to control

Part 5: Space

One of my areas I was trying to improve well designing this map was to try and use each space of the map effectively. I want to make sure I understood better when it was better to add more cover for players to jump behind of and when to leave open space for the players to navigate through. Or even caught stranded in no mans land. Understanding players are going take risk moving around the map. And because of that there has to be areas where that risk doesn’t pay off because of bad timing or another players better positioning and they will be killed because of that. With this map I believe I have managed that with certain areas being left open and certain areas having those safe areas to jump to for cover.

Part 6: Rifle on the map

When we I was concepting and designing this map I really wanted the rifles and snipers to have the ability to control entire lanes if they got into power positions. Whether that being sitting in the back of a truck, in a window, on a balcony or on a head glitch. And around the map there are plenty of these positions. They are strong enough to impact certain lanes or areas of the map but also not to strong where a player couldnt be countered out of that position with a smg or grenades.

Part 7: Sniping

The sniper on this map has the ability to shoot down players across the entire map. This is most evident in mid lane and on banana lane near the docks. This can be done on both the barn spawn and the mansion spawn so it allows for sniper battle early in matches as well as counters to each other throughout matches. The snipers still have to deal with rifle players fighting for similar positions or challenging them on head glitches. As well as the smg players who are trying to control the the mansion and slums areas by bobbing and weaving in out of those locations.

Part 8: Bobbing and Weaving SMG

Although the rifles and snipers will have the ability to control entire lanes of this map. It will be a struggle for an smg player to be constantly running and gunning up the lanes of the map. However an smg player bobby and weaving around the tight slum lanes or moving between the two floors of the mansion can have even a greater impact by frustrating those players trying to get into those power positions. They can control spawns for their team by holding down these areas and helping their teammates get into those power positions.

Part 9: Conclusion (for now)

I worked on this map for roughly 2 months. From concepting to play testable gray box. I have still not had time to set up playtest for this map. Therefore, I assumer there are still problems I have yet to find out because of that. I expect to update this map after the playtest once I learn more about the map. I do feel confident with the map. Although it is a typical 3 lane map in a lot of ways I am curios to see how certain game modes play on the map. I feel confident in game modes like CTF, Search and Destroy and Hardpoint/King of the Hill to play quite well on the map. I am also confident in the 3 main weapons of choice to all be very effective in their own ways on this map. But once again I expect to learn a lot more in play test.