Should I go for open tanyao? or have a patience for a dealer baiman?

Anyways, in this blogpost I want to write a story about the making of my newest 2025 project called Unnamed XC Map. For starter, why is the name of the map "Unnamed XC Map" in the first place? to be honest, I do not know either. Since before starting this project, I was invited to collaborate in a part of a map by one of my friend back in April 2025. Having not using the hammer editor to create a proper project in a long time, I was hesitant at first and asked what is the deadline of the project, and my friend said there is no time limit. Then I booted up hammer editor to try and create a simple design that is shown below.

Looks good for my first build in a while. After that, I told my friend I am willing to join the collaboration.

My vision for this map is a climb map that is located in the outskirts with a narrow alley, I wanted to challenge myself by creating a map that is not in my usual comfort zone like my last map. I have the idea in my head that I want to put in this map but not everything is applied here, this blog will tell you what makes it and what not. One of my inspiration is back in 2024 I have gone to Jakarta to do something, and what I saw there is very unique, mixed emotion, and whatever Jakarta has to offer. A lot of people and I mean A LOT OF PEOPLE there with the massive amount of vehicle passing by, and not to mention the abysmal air quality that you need to use mask to atleast filter some of the bad air when you use a motorcycle to go somewhere. Enough with the quick rant about Jakarta air quality, what I want to tell you is the massive wealth gap that is happening over there. At one point you are in the wealthy neighbourhood, drive for a bit will take you to the middle class, and after that you are in the poor neighbourhood. The problem is the distance between one another is not that far off, in the short days that I was there, I was able to experience all of it in one day. All of that experience is my vision on creating this map!

In the upcoming days, I was able to create a basic layout of the map and have the general idea of the map route. My plan is to make the map length around 5 minutes from start to finish, have two styles of completing the map that is the climb route and a bhop route. At first I wanted to make the alley with houses filled with unique interior, but I scrapped the idea after making 2-4 rooms that I can remember. Why you ask? because decorating it would be very time consuming and I do not want that since the realistic deadline is around 3-4 months, and this is my first project in a while so i changed it to a business lot in the outskirts instead. This is much more simple since I can just make the other non playable lot closed or empty and it would still feel realistic. Also, before I said that there is no time limit on the deadline is because my friend wanted to do the "Take your time" approach to it hence why the realistic deadline is a one third of a year. You can find some of the development picture in the Gallery page and navigating through the map name, you will see a development screenshot button to take you there or alternatively you can click here.

Next up, the prop making process!

Since i changed from an alley with houses filled with unique interior to simple lot in the outskirts, decorating the map will be easier. One of the idea is to fill the lot with some random boxes and stuff, thats the idea that makes it to the end. But filling the lot with only boxes would make the map a bit boring no? The next idea that comes to mind is a bright neon sign, adding this makes the map very cyberpunk-y even though the earlier idea would be dystopian one. Using bright neon light would use some energy realistically, so at first I wanted to connect some of the lot with cables and stuff with the electric pole is between the lot on the alley. After some thoughts I removed it since it will make the map super narrow and the idea that is left is the electric power generator in the middle of the map and towards the end below the white neon sign. The last idea I want to talk about is the balcon and railing props, since the district is very vertical, to make it seems realistic to traverse, I used the balcon and railing on the side of the lot to make it seems that people actually lives there and has some property that they own and manage. Because the map is very calculated, lining up stuff and making props is easier, so I get to work and make prop based on hammer units and also some variation so it doesnt look repetitive on the surface.

Variation in props are crucial part of the map since if we do not have it, the illusion of the map would break. If you play the map for the first time and look outside the spawn it would look big and looks real in my opinion, but this does not last long as you play the map and explore the map since it has a barrier at the end of the alley and it would teleport you back to spawn. The first playthrough is what I want people to experience because the map would look big at first and after sometime they would realise they are playing a source game. The balcon and railing variation helps too since it clutters the middle part of the map or the alley with some organized mess that would fill the eyes with a lot of information thus making it seems big at first, also the bright neon sign too has a part in this.

If this a part of a collaboration, why would you release it as a standalone map?

The map is finished within the realistic deadline, I uploaded a trailer on youtube around July 2025, but since this is a collaborative map, the next thing to do is wait for the other participant to finish up their part and after that merge it together into one map. But after sometime, the other participant might be busy with their real life so there is no update past that. And so we are in 2026, I asked if it is fine to upload it as a standalone map and one of them said yes, so here I am. Maybe I am too worked up on this project that I finished it first and it took me around 100+ hours of everything to make the map at the time the trailer dropped. I am grateful to one of my friends that is Gopa! shoutout to him, because he is the one that asked me to participate on this collaboration. Without him inviting me, this map would not be made!

I want to write more but I think this blog is fine with this length, there is more that I want to talk about like the "story" of the map, optimization, whats next and whatever is that in my head. Maybe I would make a new blogpost in the future or I just edit this to add more stuff! Before closing this blogpost, I want to include on the mindset when creating this map, that is I want to make a map that caters to me, or what makes it interesting and fun to me, that way I could make a map that I enjoy making and maybe other people will enjoy it the same as me! Thank you for reading my first blogpost, hopefully it is an interesting read.