CTF FNB Barrel Of Fun

CTF FNB Barrel Of Fun

UT CTF - Large, 8-16 players. Mechanized processing station. Released June 2009.

Vertical CTF in a Mechanized processing station. This is a CTF conversion of my "Barrel Of Fun" DM map from March 2004. The CTF was done right after the DM map was completed and was basically an experiment in vertical CTF. I never released it mainly due to a perceived imbalance in gameplay favoring the team that had the upper base position, but tbh, I didn't test out my assumptions to any great degree :)

I wasn't really worried about releasing a CTF version BarrelOfFun anyways, after all the DM project was already "old" (from 2001) and I'd had to get really arsed to finish it off after three years on the shelf - so I was quite DONE with the BoF business!

Well, I was going through my map folders the other day and there it was - The Barrel Of Fun CTF project zip. Dunno why, but I decided to play a few matches. Interstingly, after all this time, it didn't seem all that bad. I know I've played far worse CTF maps and many CTF levels can get really boring after just a few plays. The more I played this map, the more I realised it is a challenging match, and also a bit quirky - but quirky goes both ways.

Once you figure out where you're going it's fun to do a flag run - the bots put up a good chase - I found no clear advantage to base position (i.e. going up or down) and the test matches played out pretty evenly, with blue and red both able to win regularly. Of course, could be completely off-balance with humans only :) We'll probably never know :D

So I spent an couple of hours tweaking the map a bit, making sure the base markings were obvious and removed a few of the warpzones in the middle level (Level 3) which removed some short-cutting. Adjusted player starts and fixed some bot bugs and mover lift bugs. I did not bother fixing the crazy jump-pads around the center because they are not really relevant anyways. Other than that I made no other changes to the map. If there's any goofy sh$$t in there then it's still in there, lol!

Vertical CTF may not be everyone's Cup-Of-tea, but this one might be worth a look. Certainly not your typical CTF map! Well, that's what I think anyways :) If you do try it, I would suggest 5 vs 5 or 6 vs 6 masterful bots.

The music track is IsoToxin from the game Unreal.