Introduction:

Halo: Reach has less than a fortnight before its glorious release.
As such I wanted to send my Halo 3 forging career out with a bang, and I feel with Touch of Red I've made a sizeable explosion with the subsequent bang.

In the middle of designing the Policy of Truth series I decided I wanted to stray away a little from the L4D oriented style of linear infection and delve a little bit more into experimenting with infection settings in new ways on enclosed holdout maps.

Originally Haze Wave (the gametype with this) was going to feature 3 holdout maps on Sandbox (Touch of Red), Foundry (Emtheory), and Avalanche (Black Borealis).
Emtheory just didn't take off in the way I'd hoped and Black Borealis wasn't recieved well by the community when I previewed it a while back and it was just too much of a pain in the ass to fix.

Touch of Red on the other hand took off from a layout in another game I'm designing, but landed in a whole other realm very suitable for Halo 3 infection and is currently my best work on Halo 3 and instead of rushing out two other mediocre maps I simply decided to release this one with 2 gametypes.

Touch of Red is my pride and joy.

It is my swan song.

http://www.bungie.net/Online/Halo3UserContentDetails.aspx?h3fileid=119055327
^click^

fire v. fiend

HAZE WAVE INFECTION

LAST MAN ALIVE

The Map:

Touch of Red is an urban set map that effectively uses timed events to coordinate how humans move and how zombies attack.

When humans are thrown into Touch of Red they spawn near a ruined building on a street at a dead end. Expect a lot of action to happen here since it is the location of a health pack that spawns here and there, and there humans can see zombies coming from the 3 different ways they can come.

Don't expect to find many good weapons hanging around the beginning though.
You have to risk going into treacherous waters to get the sunken treasures.

The zombies spawn in a courtyard with a pretty centerpiece and a nice arch going above it.
From there they can easily get to the humans by use of the office building or the construction site.

What I call the metro is the side of the map not immediately accessable to the humans.
That area homes a sky-bridge and an elevated loft that is a nice oasis for a bit from the risky street dwelling. It also homes another health pack that only spawns every 3 minutes and must be gained using a deployable cover to jump off of. Use the building opposite the loft the access the sky-bridge.

That same building also gives humans access to the courtyard.
Through the courtyard humans can go to the construction site and nab the rocket launcher or venture to the three story office building where a trip mine and a plasma pistol can be found. As trivial as it may seem, a plasma pistol is an excellent weapon against zombies with vampirism.

Nearly every area of the map has multiple entrances and the (somewhat) radial nature of the map encourages people who do go to the metro to keep moving.

Now the reader (you) may be wondering: "what the hell is this guy talking about, where are the pics already?"

Well my friend, those are coming.

Don't think I'd leave you in the dark like that.

Besides all people want anyway are the pictures and, in the process, bypass any attempt to read so I made a nice guy out of myself and grouped all the pretty pictures together with their respective callouts.

Pics:

ruined building

inside the ruined building

the street

down the street

the metro

the loft

the courtyard

abstract art

construction site

office building

That should provide a nice overview of the map and its contents.

Gametypes:

Zombies that steal:

Haze Wave is an infection variant where the zombies have shields, but they are slowly losing them.
If they get close to one of their human adversaries though, then they can regain some of that shield back and take some of the human's life in the process.

For Haze Wave, the more the marrier.
But it's still fun with a smaller group of people too.
I recommend anywhere from 4-16 players for the Haze Wave variant.

The simple truth about this game is that a human can't do it alone. Not for long anyway. Team work is imperative to keep the zombie menace at bay.
If there is no decent team effort the round will end very quickly.

Don't think for a second that this gametype is unfair.
It's actually quite fair.
People have gotten so accustomed to going it alone in most Halo 3 games that when a couple zombies comes outta nowhere and utterly rapes the human they get all pissed off.

So this is your warning.
If you are not prepared to work together, move together, and live together then don't play this game.

Many infection variants boast teamwork but in Haze Wave, teamwork is the only way you get anywhere at all.

Don't go alone.

You will DIE.

A lonely world:

In the second gametype for Touch of Red the human (notice the non-plural) is thrown into a very different side of the infection spectrum.

Last Man Alive has no team aspect for the humans because there are no other humans.
Whoever spawns as the human is the only human on the map and must survive against endless hordes of other zombies.

Anyone who plays L4D2 avidly knows where I got this idea.

The map is the same. The health is the same (except for zombies). The weapons are the same.

If you are the anti-team loner guy who hated Haze Wave, then Last Man Alive is for you.
It's as anti-teamy as you can get.

The game starts getting fun with 5 players (1 human 4 zombies)
But after 9 players (1 human 9 zombies) it becomes damn near impossible for the human to survive long.
That's why I recommend 4-10 players at the most.
Also once you figure out how many players you want, lock the party after the game starts.
If someone else joins they come in as a human too and it screws everything up.

Good luck you lonely little hermit you.

You prepared for this day.

You are the only thing standing in the way of complete zombie domination.

Give 'em hell!

Rinse, Repeat:

TOUCH OF RED

HAZE WAVE

LAST MAN ALIVE

Random vid & pics:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bGLyeNKb8s
and she said...

into the fire

oh fuck

avenge me

star gazer

Conclusion:

Well I hope you enjoy playing this as much as I enjoyed creating it.
I appreciate anyone who helped make this map as great as it is.
Goodbye Halo 3
See you on Forge World

Peace FH.