Review - Isle of Illugan
(Version September 7th 2022)
Description: Isle of Illugan is a small melee map for a quick 1-on-1 match. The players start the game extremely close to each other but can reach for objectives on the edges of the island-themed map.
Terrain: The terrain is quite nice, though it could be improved. Tile usage is satisfactory, but offers some room for improvement at places and decorative doodads are quite absent in most areas. Visually the map looks clean, though there are areas (especially with canopy trees on otherwise open areas) that disturb visual clarity, these areas you might want to clean.
Layout: The layout is interesting, but I doubt it can work very well. The very close placement of the Starting Locations offers an interesting twist, but the very short and direct route makes this setting unfair between races: Humans could use militia and very easily storm the enemy base right at the beginning of the game. You might want to close the opening on the left and right side of the Tavern and make it so that rushing to the enemy base through the next shortest way will cause units to meet with a creep camp - this would increase the time it takes to run to the enemy until the later into the game, where both players have already reached potential to deal with issues like Militia Rush. The map is not mirrored, which can cause some balance issues, I cannot see too major an imbalance though.
Creeps: The creeps follow the overall theme of the map nicely and create camps of appropriate strength and composition. The Goblin Laboratory camp has too weak an item drop for its strength though, you might want to increase the items' level. Player 1 (Red)'s green camps are farther away from each other which is a little unfair, perhaps you can try to reposition one of the camps so they are more equally mirrored.
Gameplay: The gameplay on such a small map with such close proximity from the start leads to early fighting and quite fast-paced gameplay. As of now, racial balance is not that good and needs to be addressed, but overall quite a nice job here. The map is visually okay, slightly lacking in aesthetics, but nothing too major. I can see this as a map one can enjoy with a friend for multiple match-ups, especially after some adjustments.
Recommendations:
Improve visual clarity and gameplay consistency around the edges of the map: make isolated islands and shores unpathable. You can place a semi-continuous row of fitting decorative doodads and pathing blockers that clearly signal players which areas are included and considered part of the playable map. There are a lot of gaps between trees, fix this as this is not acceptable in melee gameplay - small units can enter between trees which is a nuisance and a balance issue. See feedback on Layout. In the file name, capitalize the word "of" as well for better readability.
Awaiting update
