Part 1 of 5 Version 2

Ok, before I start posting any game stuff, I thought i'd just show that I have changed the ending to the first level. Now the players have to reach a safe house in the park. This adds a small amount of distance to travel but should be much more interesting to play, with an open space zombies can come at all directions while the players sprint for the safe house and possibly hold them off until they can enter.
Below is another satellite picture that should make it clear.

From Deadford Designs

I've also added new reference pictures that show the rest of the starting road and the row of shops. Just imagine what carnage could happen here...

Part 1 of 5

Ok, thought i'd get a basic plan up for the first level. Remember that a campaign is infact 5 levels. Below are a basic plan of the playable area, most of it is from a road map, this is helpful for me to see what sort of size i have to aim for. I have also done one based from a satellite map of the area, this is probably better to get a better idea of what it will look like. You will have to look closely to see exactly is in there, like a row of shops with parking and a dirt path behind some houses. The blue lines mark the road blocks, i.e. the players cant go any further in that direction.

Remember this is very early. It may totaly change, depending on how big I have to make the level after I find out the scaling etc of the campaign I might take a totaly different route. For example there is a park I could choose to go through which i like the idea of.

From Deadford Designs

From Deadford Designs

The run down

Ok, so day one into the project. I went outside to take photo's of the area, although it was so cold I decided only to take pictures of the opening area. Im going to be uploading them to an album that will be a slideshow on the right. All reference photo's will go into that slideshow. I will probably make another slideshow for images of designs, and eventually one for in-game screenshots.

This is for showing what the area in real life looks like so you can compare how closely I was able to redo it. That being said, using custom textures and making replicas of each house wont be possible as that would require too much downloading by the player, although we'll see about this situation once I get to that point. Instead I'll be building approximations inside Hammer (the level editor) using existing assests from the game. So these pictures can be taken as a rough guide more than something I can carbon copy into the game.

The next stages will be me making photoshop versions of my designs for the campaign, as at the moment its all on paper ontop of maps from the area. Also I have to make part of a level to see how well it scales, i.e. how long it takes a player to cover the amount of ground I plan for them to reach the end of each level, this will effect how long the campaign will be and where my planned finale point will be. At the moment I have two possible locations, I really like the second, longer version, as the area is perfect for it. You'll find out more when I upload the plans.

Deadford

Deadford is or will be a custom campaign for the game Left 4 Dead. It is based on my home town. It is entirely designed from maps of the area, every street, every house is where it is in real life. Although after an appocalypse some things do change.

Expect an adventure of survival through the suburbian wilderness of a British market town.

This blog will serve as a record of my progress through planning and implementation. Feel free to leave any comments or questions about any part of the project.