Cladite

by a Polish Korean / Synatric

The History of Cladite:
Citadel is one of my favorite Halo maps of all time. The design, aesthetics, and movement flow really appealed to me as a player (****** you Solo), and playing on Citadel really was one of the highlights for me in a rather frustrating game.

A truly breath-taking map.

Once I got into forging and I learned more and more about game-level design, I thought I would try my hand at a Citadel-inspired design. Every map has its flaws, and Citadel was no exception. Some of the immediate flaws that were apparent were: lack of connectivity between the High Plat areas with the OV halls, a lackluster middle structure, and dead zones. I tried my best to address these issues in my initial pen-and-paper sketches, and I was rather satisfied. I began to forge the map, and became obsessed with seeing the outcome, and I was able to forge it in a rather brief period of time. After consulting a few people, I was reassured that I was onto something, but I had some glaring problems: massive framerate drops, ridiculously open lines of sight, and an over-the-top scale.

Way too big and way too open.

After getting sick and tired of rebuilding the map several times, I put Cladite on the shelf. For the next couple of months, I shifted my attention towards watching Quake VoD, making a House of Decay remake, and playing NR 1v1s. I also put an appreciable amount of time into getting better at Reach, which seemed to be more of a chore than a pleasure. NR 1v1s consumed a lot of my time, and was the most enjoyable Halo experiences I've had. Don't be surprised if you see a NR 1v1/Decay release sometime soon.

How could you possibly resist playing this? Exactly.

After returning to forging for 4v4s with Sierra, I cycled through the plethora of my unreleased and unfinished projects. I stumbled across a version of Cladite that Brett and Solo were helping me with, and it piqued my interest. I decided to start from scrap, and began to get to work. After a couple of days, the new and improved Cladite was finished, but I still had some framerate issues. After reducing my object count and some troublesome pieces (huge ups to Uno for the help with that), Cladite was ready for testing.

Test games were very enjoyable, but I came across a few issues. I was stumbling on some of the easiest things when it comes to forging. The most embarrassing problem I had was trying to get side-specific spawns in CTF and Bomb. Except for my first map, Amped, I had only forged Asymetric maps, therefore, I had no clue how to set up sided spawns. When I asked others for help, they were sure that I was pulling their chain, but I reassured them that I was an idiot. After fixing all the kinks and doing some fine-tuning, the test games were a lot smoother and a lot more enjoyable. Below is one of the many test games:

YouTube - ‪Cladite KotH aPK PoV.MP4‬&rlm;

Huge thanks goes out to Cleanup for capping the gameplay.

Cladite has been a blast to forge and play for me, and I hope it is the same for you guys. I'd like to give huge ups to Brett for always being the better half of Brolish Polimaled (don't ask), Solo for the suggestions and feedback, Uno for the help with the framerate and additional feedback, Fritz for showing interest since Day 1, Keller for co-forging the first versions of Cladite, Salot and Bunnies for being in almost every test game and providing feedback and suggestions, Spaceneil for initially sparking my interest in Forge, Dawkins for being motivational, Snipedown for sticking around in that custom game lobby to play a couple of forged maps, and everyone else who helped fill the custom lobbies up and offered feedback.

Gametype Support:
-Team Slayer
-CTF (Suggestion: 5 Flag)
-Bomb (Suggestion: Sanc Bomb)
-KotH
-Oddball

Intel:
-Rocket Launcher
-Camo
-2 JetPacks
-2 Mags
-2 Plasma Pistols
-4 Plasma Grenades
-2 DMRs
-2 NRs
-2 Health Packs

Screenshots:

Big Door

Base

High Plat

Rockets

Camo

Download Cladite