Dev Blog - Manor Map
As most of you are aware, over the past few months we’ve been working on a new Deceit map! So far hints have been dropped on the map's theme or contents, and with lots of speculation from the players, we decided it was about time to post a dev blog to keep you all updated on its progress. Along with this short blog about the map's design, there are also a few sneak preview screenshots of what you can expect.
As you may have guessed… the theme for this map is “The Manor”. In this new map players will find themselves in a mysterious manor house, but the manor appears to be recently abandoned with the residents nowhere to be found. Who owns the manor? Where have they gone? Can you escape?
The manor follows the same theme as the other Deceit maps: progress through 3 levels, collecting fuses and items along the way, with the goal of escaping… or not. However this map has a twist… unlike the other maps, players will find themselves awakening on the top floor of the manor, and as the game progresses they must make their way downstairs and eventually into the manor's garden.
The idea behind the map originated from the Asylum, with the original idea being a reversed layout, where players progress downwards from the top floor down to the bottom floor in order to escape. However this posed some problems: currently the maps are structured to become smaller as the games progress to reflect dwindling player numbers as the innocents are eliminated, meaning that a reverse flow would need tweaks to re-balance the scale and sizing of the rooms to follow this design. Taking this into account, we abandoned this idea in favour of creating a brand new map using the Asylum’s assets, such as a mansion or manor. Whilst this would have sped up the process quite drastically, it didn’t have the same effect, and we wanted to give the players something fun and entirely new to add greater variation to our maps.
When designing the map, we had to take into consideration feedback from existing maps to ensure that this map is balanced for both infected and innocent play, taking note of each of the other maps downfalls and advantages. For example, a lot of players find the arctic map too open, which can make gameplay very difficult for the infected, compared to the Asylum, with its huge rooms and long corridors where it is very easy to slip undetected. This information very heavily influenced the design of the map, and we opted for large open doors and archways to allow players to quickly scope out rooms and also provide a more smooth game flow whilst also allowing many blind spots and escape routes.
This map also is very unique, as it is the first map where one of the levels is entirely different to the others. In the final area players find themselves in a large walled garden, meaning that they have to adapt their playstyle to their new surroundings. Innocent players must work as a team to navigate through a large hedge maze to find the exit. In a place where everything looks very similar, players can easily find themselves lost if they forget to pay attention to their surroundings…
While we do not have an exact launch date, we plan to be releasing even more sneak previews of the map over the coming weeks, and we aim to be able to give you a clearer idea of when you can expect to play in the manor!
As you may have guessed… the theme for this map is “The Manor”. In this new map players will find themselves in a mysterious manor house, but the manor appears to be recently abandoned with the residents nowhere to be found. Who owns the manor? Where have they gone? Can you escape?
The manor follows the same theme as the other Deceit maps: progress through 3 levels, collecting fuses and items along the way, with the goal of escaping… or not. However this map has a twist… unlike the other maps, players will find themselves awakening on the top floor of the manor, and as the game progresses they must make their way downstairs and eventually into the manor's garden.
The idea behind the map originated from the Asylum, with the original idea being a reversed layout, where players progress downwards from the top floor down to the bottom floor in order to escape. However this posed some problems: currently the maps are structured to become smaller as the games progress to reflect dwindling player numbers as the innocents are eliminated, meaning that a reverse flow would need tweaks to re-balance the scale and sizing of the rooms to follow this design. Taking this into account, we abandoned this idea in favour of creating a brand new map using the Asylum’s assets, such as a mansion or manor. Whilst this would have sped up the process quite drastically, it didn’t have the same effect, and we wanted to give the players something fun and entirely new to add greater variation to our maps.
When designing the map, we had to take into consideration feedback from existing maps to ensure that this map is balanced for both infected and innocent play, taking note of each of the other maps downfalls and advantages. For example, a lot of players find the arctic map too open, which can make gameplay very difficult for the infected, compared to the Asylum, with its huge rooms and long corridors where it is very easy to slip undetected. This information very heavily influenced the design of the map, and we opted for large open doors and archways to allow players to quickly scope out rooms and also provide a more smooth game flow whilst also allowing many blind spots and escape routes.
This map also is very unique, as it is the first map where one of the levels is entirely different to the others. In the final area players find themselves in a large walled garden, meaning that they have to adapt their playstyle to their new surroundings. Innocent players must work as a team to navigate through a large hedge maze to find the exit. In a place where everything looks very similar, players can easily find themselves lost if they forget to pay attention to their surroundings…
While we do not have an exact launch date, we plan to be releasing even more sneak previews of the map over the coming weeks, and we aim to be able to give you a clearer idea of when you can expect to play in the manor!
