Leaf Island

[templa]

Quite a good map,thanks for sharing

 

[Remixer]

Review - Leaf Island
(Version December 24th 2023)
Synopsis: Leaf Island is a Sunken Ruins-themed melee map. The visually pleasing map's quality is reduced by improper placement of trees, causing balance issues between races and allowing unhealthy gameplay mechanics to be used. The players have a direct, short attack route to each other's starting locations, possibly causing further balance issues.
Map Aesthetics: The map is visually pleasing and the half-sunken island theme carries well throughout the map. Usage of canopy trees can cause visual clutter and is not very recommendable, apart from rarely-accessed parts of the map. Visual clarity is also hindered by the various gaps between trees and other objects: the pathing should be clear to each player without having to pay extra attention to it. The tile and height variation are satisfying and the thematic aspects carry well over to the creeps used as well.
Map Layout: The first thing that strikes my eye is the direct route to the enemy base: to me it seems short, allowing quick early-game rushes that can be very annoying and unfair to play against. The vertical division of the map with the wall of trees and the Fountain Camp is intriguing, though I would take the Water Elementals off the camp mode to make them aggro if you try to pass the middle of the map. If the game progresses past the beginning (if the short passage is not game-ending) the fountain passage becomes essential in accessing the enemy expansion and the other side of the base.
Neutral Objectives: Thematically the creeps fit the map nicely, though some camps consist of a little too similar creeps (Jungle Stalker camps for example). The fountain camp is a central passageway and plays an important role in the later part of the gameplay. The fountain camp has way too strong item drops compared to its strength (not to mention you can heal your units after killing it) and it should only drop one strong item, while the Jungle Stalker camp on the other hand has a little too weak item drop (Level 2 Permanent for Level 15 camp).
Map Gameplay: The top-side passage has a little too big an impact on the early game and it could be lengthened (close the direct passage between the two tree lines and force units to walk by the Tavern). One option could even be to close the route by the Green Creep camps to prevent very fast rushes. The larger layout itself is very interesting, and once the item drop issues are fixed the map can have very interesting games on it, as the fountain becomes a control point that is not exactly near the bases, but still the closest indirect pathway to the enemy expansion and the opponent's side of the map.

Recommendations:
Fix the tree lines (this is a common issue in your maps that you should fix across them all).
Fix the item drops (they're mostly good, but the fountain camp has too strong drops combined (could be one level 4-5 permanent).
Fix open areas outside the playable areas of the map (little islands and on top of hills as well as behind some decorative objects).
Check the direct (short) passage between the players and find a way to make it less game-altering in the first 3 minutes of the gameplay.

I think this is your best map candidate so far, with nice uniquity brought by the layout, but it still has issues that most of your maps have.