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- Feb 19, 2011
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Review - Arid Upland
(Version April 13th 2026)
Synopsis: Arid Upland is a two-player melee map, featuring the Barrens tileset. While visually beautiful, the terrain structuring and pathing are quite unconventional for a melee map.
Map Aesthetics: Visually the map looks quite decent. Room for improvements still exists though: raise/lower tool would give depth to the terrain, tile usage is quite continuous and could look more dynamic. Visual clarity is also a bit lacking at some areas: props and some destructibles are position in places where they may hinder gameplay, especially near objectives.
Map Layout: Layout is quite open with a web-structure, small obstacle-isles breaking the openness. The layout features a lot of narrow passages which can be annoying when too numerous, and act as perhaps a bit heavy choke-points. The primary bases have a very unconventional gold mine placement and I'd say it's not exactly a good approach: the mines are very exposed, weakening specific races. Cliff-level usage could also be revised: high and low grounds should be used sparingly and stagetically. For example the wolf creep camps on a narrow and small uphill is not a very player-friendly usage of cliff levels.
Neutral Objectives: Creep camp strengths levels are mostly acceptable, though some exceptions exist. The Goblin Laboratory camps should be harder than 3 level 1 units, especially being so close to the base. Camp positioning feels a bit crammed and oftentimes the camps are extending a bit too much to the passages and might trigger aggro. Perhaps it would be good idea to revisit each creep camp and check their local layout and visual clarity.
Map Gameplay: Overall the melee map functions, but a lot of elements make it a bit unconventional. Big improvements could be done by improving terrain flow. Reducing the number of chokepoints, while closing larger zones (which could give more strategic depth in positioning).
Recommendations:
Apply heigh/lower tool to give depth to the terrain. You can also improve tile usage by making it less systemic: currently all the cliffs have 1 tile of the cliff-tile surrounding them, making it look quite unnatural. You should also recalculate shadows to remove phantom shadows.
Check above for more detailed mentions on specific areas.
(Version April 13th 2026)
Synopsis: Arid Upland is a two-player melee map, featuring the Barrens tileset. While visually beautiful, the terrain structuring and pathing are quite unconventional for a melee map.
Map Aesthetics: Visually the map looks quite decent. Room for improvements still exists though: raise/lower tool would give depth to the terrain, tile usage is quite continuous and could look more dynamic. Visual clarity is also a bit lacking at some areas: props and some destructibles are position in places where they may hinder gameplay, especially near objectives.
Map Layout: Layout is quite open with a web-structure, small obstacle-isles breaking the openness. The layout features a lot of narrow passages which can be annoying when too numerous, and act as perhaps a bit heavy choke-points. The primary bases have a very unconventional gold mine placement and I'd say it's not exactly a good approach: the mines are very exposed, weakening specific races. Cliff-level usage could also be revised: high and low grounds should be used sparingly and stagetically. For example the wolf creep camps on a narrow and small uphill is not a very player-friendly usage of cliff levels.
Neutral Objectives: Creep camp strengths levels are mostly acceptable, though some exceptions exist. The Goblin Laboratory camps should be harder than 3 level 1 units, especially being so close to the base. Camp positioning feels a bit crammed and oftentimes the camps are extending a bit too much to the passages and might trigger aggro. Perhaps it would be good idea to revisit each creep camp and check their local layout and visual clarity.
Map Gameplay: Overall the melee map functions, but a lot of elements make it a bit unconventional. Big improvements could be done by improving terrain flow. Reducing the number of chokepoints, while closing larger zones (which could give more strategic depth in positioning).
Recommendations:
Apply heigh/lower tool to give depth to the terrain. You can also improve tile usage by making it less systemic: currently all the cliffs have 1 tile of the cliff-tile surrounding them, making it look quite unnatural. You should also recalculate shadows to remove phantom shadows.
Check above for more detailed mentions on specific areas.
