As GIF in 2D
As PDF in 2D

CS2D Designer: Half-Pint

Get the Map and try it for yourself here...

Download CS_THUNDER (2.5 MEGS) to play on your own computer (2D plan also in zip file).

Original 3D Map Designer: Narby aka Barney

Interview with Narby aka Barney:

<Half-Pint> welcome to Counter-Strike 2D's first mapper interview with Narby aka Barney 
<Barney> :D
<Half-Pint> So how about we start off by you telling us a little bit about yourself? 
<Barney> My name is Chris auty, im living in the UK right now, im 18 years old and spend my time mapping and umm eating :D
<Barney> sleep is good too
<Half-Pint> What's your favourite food :) 
<Barney> I love donuts, jelly glazed donuts.
<Barney> And you cant beat a Burger king. Burger
<Half-Pint> mmm donuts :) Ok well for those that don't know Barney made DE_AZTEC. When did you make your first map? 
<Barney> a looooong time ago, for Quake, 
<Half-Pint> Since Quake what have you done mapping for? 
<Barney> I didn't really start making any maps that were any good until i started mapping for Halflife. My quake days were just a warm up i guess
<Half-Pint> What was your first Halflife map? 
<Barney> I made a lot of SP levels, which i never got round to releasing. My first released map was a HLDM map called "spacecrazy"
<Half-Pint> I never played HL DM that much, how successful was spacecrazy? 
<Barney> last time i checked it was at about 1000 downloads from fileplanet.
<Barney> it was map of the week on lambda map complex
<Half-Pint> Well that's good to hear 
<Half-Pint> How hard do you find mapping for HL? 
<Barney> its easier as you get used to it.
<Barney> the hardest part I find, is designing the layouts and creating a balanced map
<Half-Pint> How do you go about your creation process? 
<Barney> I'm not sure, I get idea from a lot of different mediums, TV, movies, real life
<Barney> once I find something i think would be fun to make as a map, I try and make it
<Half-Pint> Well after you get your idea have you found any good tricks to keep it balanced and give it a smooth layout? 
<Barney> Keeping the teams an equal distance apart from each other is a good way of doing things :D
<Barney> have a mixture of horizontal and vertical gameplay
<Half-Pint> Well I guess we should delve into Counter-Strike a bit :) When did you first play CS?
<Barney> I hate to say it, but beta 1
<Barney> a friend saw it and got a copy and we played on a lan
<Barney> i didn't strat playing online until about beta 3
<Half-Pint> ooo a beta 1, I didn't play till the beginning of beta 4. 
<Half-Pint> When did you decide you wanted to make maps for Counter-Strike? 
<Barney> I started mapping for Cs in beta2, i sent a map to cliffe and he said it needed another entrance. (only one route hehe)
<Half-Pint> What was the map you made called? 
<Barney> cs_ca23
<Barney> immamaginative huh
<Barney> lol
<Half-Pint> lol 
<Half-Pint> What was it about? 
<Barney> i cant spell
<Barney> its 4am
<Half-Pint> its only 10:45 here :) 
<Barney> it was an underground warehouse
<Barney> huge map, but pretty crappy for Cs
<Half-Pint> So what did you try to do next? 
<Barney> i kinda gave up on cs map until beta 6.5, when i submitted an es map called frantic.
<Barney> 
<Barney> It got accepted and i was happy :D
<Half-Pint> That was the underground subway tunnel map right? 
<Barney> yeah
<Half-Pint> What did you think of the ES play style? 
<Barney> i kinda b0rked the scale, it was vast lol
<Half-Pint> Yeah Frantic was huge :) 
<Barney> i kinda liked es, but always hated the initial rush for guns on the map on the T side.
<Barney> 
<Barney> The teams were always stacked to CT
<Half-Pint> Especially if ff was on cause you had to shoot it out to get a gun :) 
<Barney> :)
<Half-Pint> So I guess frantic led to internet fame and glory eh? 
<Barney> something like that
<Barney> it opened the door to more maps
<Half-Pint> So where did Frantic lead to next? I'm guessing Aztec but I could be mistaken. 
<Barney> i played about with cs maps and came up with Aztec, i learnt a lot of lessons the hard way from frantic, so i tried to make Aztec a lot more user friendly
<Half-Pint> When did DE_AZTEC get official release status? 
<Barney> beta 7
<Half-Pint> Lots of people including me, really liked Aztec. What kind of feedback did you get from the CS community about Aztec? 
<Barney> its a mixture
<Barney> some love it some hate it
<Barney> you can never please 100% of people 100% of the time
<Barney> The biggest rant i guess, is about the Lightning. And the notorious T spawn box bug
<Half-Pint> that's for sure, how did you use this criticism to better the design? 
<Barney> i changed things around in 7.1, moved the bomb point to stop the water plant bug
<Barney> the box bug has only been around since last beta so ill be fixing it for cs 1.1
<Half-Pint> Word is that we can all expect a brand new Aztec version in 1.1, what can we expect? 
<Barney> I rebuilt aztec from scratch over a weekend, it has improved geometry and architecture, and no more lightning.
<Half-Pint> Have the bomb points shifted much? 
<Barney> The water is clear so can see the dropped bomb, and the old bomb site has been returned
<Half-Pint> New textures? 
<Barney> nope
<Barney> well
<Barney> a few TFC2.wad ones
<Barney> but nothing custom
<Half-Pint> So what other projects do you have on the horizon for 1.1 CS? 
<Barney> de_inferno
<Barney> it may make it onto 1.1
<Half-Pint> There was also supposed to be another map (the one I'm releasing on my site) CS_Thunder. Could you talk about why Thunder won't be seen in 1.1? 
<Barney> basically the layout was too big
<Barney> for a hostage map the times to intercept the CTs rescuing would be too big
<Half-Pint> Too bad cause my clan has loved playing it. So can you talk a bit about Inferno? 
<Barney> inferno is basically set in a Mediterranean
<Barney> village
<Barney> excuse my pathetic spelling this early in the morning
<Barney> its a de_ map, you have to bomb the gas pipelines at the edge of a small village



<Half-Pint> What were your biggest influences on its design? 
<Barney> similar style to TF2
<Half-Pint> Well would you like to say a few words to anyone out in the internet? 
<Barney> i loved the Tf2 styles from early screenies, they looked so good i thought id try and create the same style
<Barney> yes, Euro*brew is your god
<Barney> bow to him
<Half-Pint> :) 
<Half-Pint> Anyone else? 
<Barney> special thanks to Joesmoe, Telnets Mattc and Macman for all their help with textures in the past
<Barney> the unsung heros of mapping.
<Half-Pint> Well I would like to thank you for this interview and allowing me to release CS_THUNDER to the internet for you. 
<Barney> np
<Half-Pint> I also had a lot of fun mapping it out in 2D 
<Barney> thank you
<Barney> hehe
<Barney> i appreciate the 2d of it
<Barney> looks great!
<Half-Pint> Thanks. So do you have any plans for future projects? 
<Barney> always
<Barney> id love to map professionally
<Barney> i have a lot of free time on my hands now
<Half-Pint> Hear that people he wants a job!!! 
<Barney> lol
<Half-Pint> Well good luck on life and everything. I guess this means goodnight now. 
<Barney> cool, speak to you later
<Half-Pint> Well that concludes CS2D's first mapper interview. Don't forget to grab CS_THUNDER from my site and the 2D blueprint. 
<Barney> :D