Church

Church
"Worn away by years of neglect, this holy place won't protect you from the undead or the rain..."

Map Variant

*Optional Gametype* Undead
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Spoiler

7 Rounds, 5 minutes
Next zombie: Chump

Scoring
Zombie kill: 1
Infection: 1
Last Man: 1
Suicide + Betrayal: -1

Alpha Zombie Traits
90% Damage Resistance
Instant Kill
Energy Sword, Infinite Ammo
150% speed
100% Gravity

Zombie Traits
90% Damage Resistance
Instant Kill
Energy Sword, Infinite Ammo
125% speed
100% Gravity

Human Traits
Magnum + Shotgun, limited ammo
110% damage modifier
No weapon pick-up
10m Motion Tracker

Last Man Traits
125% damage modifier
25m Motion Tracker
Waypoint Visible to Everyone

Notes

Custom Power-ups do nothing
Zombies have 300% damage resistance for 2 seconds after they spawn

In April I decided that I was going to make another infection map, so I thought to myself "what would the creepiest place be to set a zombie map?". Then, whilst in Chapel (compulsory at British boarding schools ) I had a flash of inspiration, and I decided to base it around my school's Chapel. So I made the map in the space of four days, but soon it fell into the dark recesses of my saved map variants and gathered dust. The other day, however, I uncovered the artifact and set my mind on actually finishing a map for once (I've got something like 6 maps on the go). There wasn't much left to do apart from add a few spawn points and fix a few things here and there, so soon I had it to my liking. Enough blabbing on, here are some pics:

Side view of church


Back of the church (outside)


This is what you first see when you enter the church (notice the balcony above you)


The view of the main doors + balcony from the altar (the staircase is on the left)


looking up the ruined stairs


arial view of stairs

When you go up the stairs, you reach a long corridor with a door on the left. The entrance to the balcony is on the right at the end.


Looking down the corridor towards stairs

The door previously mentioned leads to the vicar's room (below) which looks out at the desert from the church's front window.



Main view of the balcony. Notice the "organ piano thing" on the right. There was originally going to be the whole organ, but due to the object limit I had to sacrifice it


This picture shows the scale of the map. Basically, it's pretty huge


Close up of the altar. Notice the pallets, these will be explained later


"Indent in wall" part of the church on the right of the altar. Not sure what this part is called but it's where the people serving the chapel service sit.


Another inside shot, notice the boarded up windows and the main stained glass window (just incase you missed it lol)

Gameplay

Now that I've satisfied the population of Forgehub who only scroll down the page and rate the map by its pictures, thanks for "reading". For those who remain who want to learn about how the map plays, I will be more than happy to entertain you.

Humans start off either right outside the church, and others start inside. Zombies spawn right on the outskirts of the map where its darkest. Fear not infected people, you are still inside the map's boundaries so will not get blasted by the guardians upon spawning. A few (and I literally mean one or two) zombies start on the church's roof and so can assasinate humans ninja style whilst their undead comrades distract them by leaping out of the shadows. Soon though, most of the humans will be safe inside the church, or so they think...

Now I'm not sure if any of you feel this way, but I can rarely find an infection map which is not tipped in the humans' favour (ie bloody hard for the zombies). So one thing which I wanted to make sure of in this map was that the game was fair for both zombies and humans. As you may have noticed the church has various entrances such as the windows. Small damaged columns lie on either side of the church for the zombies to use to jump through the windows. Wooden boards have been placed up to make life slightly more difficult for the zombies, as have pallets (respawn time of 20 seconds).

Sneaky, sneaky

Although zombies will often spawn on the outside of the map, there is also the crypt (below) which is perfect for planning attacks.

Oh the agony of choice!

There are two teleporters in the crypt which are the only ways out of it. The teleporter by the blue column can lead to two places. Either behind the altar (below) or onto the roof (which I will explain later).

The teleporter by the red column only leads to one place, and should be used sparingly. This place is the altar. Not around it, or ontop of it, but actually inside the altar. Upon exiting the reciever node you will be thrust sharply upwards into the pallets (which are held down by weapon holders) by a gravity lift (instarespawn - don't get any ideas humans...).

weeeee

Coming back to the teleporter on the roof (where there are also zombie respawn points); the roof is one of the most important parts of the game and always keeps humans on their toes. As you've probably noticed, the roof has several huge gaping holes - perfect for zombies to drop down into and give a rather literal meaning of "death from above".

The roof is also useful for zombies as it can give a co-ordinated one rewards from the stained glass window. In case that's too vague, if done correctly the zombie can obtain an overshield or active camo by dropping down from the roof and passing through the "window". However, I speak from personal experience when I say that this is really hard to do. Collecting the power ups is easy, but it's avoiding the custom power ups which is almost impossible. Custom power ups do nothing to a character apart from increase their speed by 10% in standard infection, and therefore cancel out the effects of the overshield or camo.

Well, I think I've covered most of the aspects of the map, and I apologise if I've bored you with these massive walls of text. You're not the only one who's hurting, my poor fingers will never be the same again! Anyway, I hope you enjoy playing on this map if you give it a DL and thank you for taking the time to read this obsenely large post.

P.S. A short machinima advertising this map will be made very shortly as soon as my capture card works
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Thanks for all the great feedback guys! It really makes posting maps worthwile
I'm going to be testing this map quite a bit over the next few days with a few of my friends, so I might make a specific gametype for it and see how it plays with different zombie health, speeds, etc.
In response to Matt666, I do agree that the outside's bland, but I've only got $1 remaining in the budget so it's a bit late to do anything about it. Also, I wanted gameplay to be focused on staying inside the church, wandering around outside it is frankly suicide. Because of this, I don't think it'd play well for any other gametypes as it was specifically designed for infection. I can't really see team oriented games playing well on this because it has no bases, but I don't know I could be wrong. Anyway, thanks a lot for your comment! As great as compliments are, constructive critisism is just as good cause it can help improve the map.
Thanks again all!

 

Thanks again for the feedback guys I'm still working on a game variant for it. So far I think that slightly faster zombies with less health + less gravity (ie lighter); humans with increased gravity armed with pistols + shotguns on low ammo is the way to go. Anyway, as promised I took some screenshots from the testing sessions, so here are the action shots:

Spoiler

double teamed

One of them was not happy about the kill steal

zombie 1, humans 0


lunge


Death from above


Double kill


Shield

A common tactic for the zombies was to use the pews as barriers as they made their way up the church towards the altar

Why me?


Watch out above you!


Watching your team mate die

not the most morale boosting experiences

Jumping through the stained glass

I managed to collect three overshields and an active camo, but the custom power up at the end rendered them useless

Outnumbered, but never outgunned

Death poking its ugly head around the corner

Battle on the stairs


Death from above 2

Just thought we'd drop in

and my favourite screenshot...

Naivety

Lack of situational awareness or that of your surroundings kills

Thanks again

 

Thanks for the feedback mate, sorry I've taken so long to reply (exams ). Compliments are great, but in many ways constructive criticism is even better as it'll help me to improve this map. Although at the moment I have no plans of making a V2 as I've got around 5 other forge projects on the go, I think I've almost created a perfect gametype for this map. I'm going to test it in the next few days with some friends as we're all on holiday now, so I can get it as good as it could possibly be. Again, if anyone has played on the map with their own custom infection variants, I'd be very interested to hear how they thought the game played best!

At the moment, I'm working on another infection map which shares several similarities with this one, so if anyone else has found a problem with this map, or thinks it could be improved in a way, I'd be very grateful for their contribution I'm forging it in the skybubble though, for a bit of a change, so the "empty space" outside the church in this map [which isn't really a problem as it's suicide to stay outside the building] won't be an "issue" anymore.

Huge thanks to everyone who has downloaded this map, almost 300 DLs in total! XD (285 as of 27th June).

 

I don't suppose that'd happen to be your "Darkness Fall" Gametype

I take it 43 is meant to be an exaggeration? I've only seen around 20 other church themed infection maps, but I get the point that the idea of making a church for infection isn't entirely original lol. I agree that humans escaping from the church and escaping to the edge of the map could be a problem, but maybe in the new game variant [which I'll put up in the next few days] I could give zombies 3 seconds of invulnerability when they spawn and they will be able to run faster. This will mean that they will be invincible when running to the church so could kill any humans outside. I don't know if this'll work though, so it'll be something for me to test. I really like the idea of keeping the humans locked up inside the church, but unfortunately I've used up all the budget so won't be able to block all the exits. Yes, the zombies can get the powerups (as I mentionned in my first post), but it's almost impossible for them to get the overshields/ active camo without touching a custom power-up as well. As the custom power-ups have very little effect on zombies (increasing speed to 110% or something in most gametypes) this cancels the effects of the overshields + active camo as the custom power-ups have no effect on appearance or shields/health. Because of this, it's mainly just another entrance as it's very hard for a zombie to control what power-ups they do pick up as they try to avoid the custom power-ups.

I completely agree, this map does suck majorly with normal infection lol. As I said in my last post, I've been busy with school, exams, etc. all that fun stuff, but I've almost got the gametype sorted + I'll be putting it in this post soon. Because of the distance the zombies have to travel from the edges of the map to the church, I think that increasing their speed and slightly lowering their health is going to be the main focus behind creating the gamtype, but the degrees of each (ie 125% speed, 90% health) has yet to be decided.

As always, thanks for all your comments Any more regarding the gametype (especially from those who have played it) would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again for everyone who's downloaded Church! 373 DLs as of July 2nd

 

I'm perfectly able to edit my own thread. Your opinion on whether I'm able to edit my thread or am dedicated to my map is unwanted + not needed. It also has nothing to do with the actual map, so could be considered as spam. This post isn't meant to offensive, so please don't reply if your post doesn't concern the map.

*EDIT*

The link to the Gametype, Undead, is now in the thread at the top by the Map Variant link. It's not quite as I'd have wanted it to be, but oh well. I'm sorry to all the people who have politely asked for a game variant, but I've been busy. Also, when I first made this map I didn't have a clear game variant in mind, so I had to do some testing + all that jazz. If anyone has any suggestions on how to improve the game variant, I'm all ears and will take any suggestions; making as many V2s, V3s, V8901s, etc. until I get it right which I hope proves my "dedication" to my map.