The Office Park - Concept Shots

The first map of the Concrete Bayou campaign, The Office Park, is vastly different from the others in that it provides a sort of maze - albeit a very linear one - for the survivors to navigate. Where the rest of the maps are fairly straightforward runs from point A to point B, The Office Park is almost exclusively centered around one large complex, which the survivors circle several times on their way out. This made for a number of design challenges which are constantly presenting themselves, but also demanded a very detail-intensive approach, as players must spend a lot of time looking at the same scenery.

From Concrete Bayou

I don't mention it very often, for the sake of avoiding any potential conflict, but The Office Park is based off of my old high school. Originally the plan was to keep it as a high school and do a 1:1 replica, but apocalyptic. This idea was immediately scrapped for a number of reasons, but primarily because of the abundance of office-themed content available within the Left 4 Dead resources. With the help of a number of different photographs, I decided instead to focus on the basic layout of the school and surrounding areas, but take plenty of liberties to make it interesting and playable.