PEGG01

This was actually the last map I made! I finished it the same day I released the
pack, and it's probably the map that took the longest to make - mainly just
because I was trying to finish highschool in the middle of making it.

The name "Pretentious Genesis" was chosen because I thought it sounded cool. The
themeing of the map came from the idea of wanting to make a map with two skyboxes,
so having a bright side and a dark side seemed cool to me. It was partially
inspired by DOS Reborn's Volt Man map, which has a cool texture transitioning
the inside of the map and the outside.

I hope it doesnt come off as too similar to other maps, like Derek's Jam7 map
(which also has a similar light/dark symmetrical thing going on.)

The reason I made it last was because I wanted my first map to be my best map,
but honestly I think it actually ended up being the weakest of them all. I hope
it's still at least pretty!


PEGG02

Originally, this map was supposed to be like a Halo: Combat Evolved map using the
same sort of aesthetic of the Covenant ship maps. I really liked the idea of 
having bridges going across a main area and wanted to make a map that had that.

Ultimately I ended up going with a grimy industrial theme, because I was listening
to Rusty Bucket Bay while working on the map and thought it was cool. I would have
used that as the map's song, too, but I couldnt find a cover that I really liked.

Other than that, not much to say about this map. Using vanilla textures in creative
ways is super fun, but for this map I had to add a few custom textures just to
fill in some gaps.

Oh, this map was the fourth one I made.


PEGG03

For this one, I was originally going to use a cover of National Park from
Pokemon Gold and have the layout be something like the Kakariko Village map in
Garry's Mod. A small, homely village with some basic building materials. I
eventually decided against that, though, and went with a different kind of quaint
town... although this is more of a city than anything. The song was a suggestion
from Korby (thanks, by the way!) and I think it helped the map feel a lot nicer.

The working name for this map was "The City That Sleeps," but I changed it to be
what it is now because, again, I thought it sounded cool. It's Spanish, and
roughly translates into English as "The Taste of Oranges."

Making the textures for this map was really challenging, and took up most of the
development process. I was having trouble coming up with unique shapes and set-
piece ideas. I think they came out really nice, though! ...Albeit a bit basic.
The yellow sunset lighting seemed to work out really well, so I hope people think
it's pretty too.

Oh! Right, some of the geometry in the map was inspired by some Overwatch and
Valorant maps. I wonder if it's obvious...?


PEGG04

This was the second map I made for the pack, and I think it's probably my favourite.
It was made in around a day out of procrastination from schoolwork. I didn't feel
like making new textures for the map, so I used vanilla ones to the best of my
ability.

I was considering making this map PEGG01 for a while, but I wanted to wait to see
if I could make anything better. I'm not too sure if I did, ultimately, but
I also haven't seen any public reception yet. We'll see!

The name came from the way the map looks. All the colours are fresh and vibrant,
and the trees reminded me of crispy, fresh lettuce. I put a lot of fun weapons
alongside Eddie, so I hope there'll be some chaotic matches here!


PEGG05

The first map I made, and honestly it's pretty weak as a result of that. It's 
huge and the layout is a little messy, but hopefully people won't notice.

Silly as it sounds, the idea for this map came to me in a dream: A dark purple
castle with a bright cloudy skybox. The music was a perfect fit for it too, so
I just went all in and made a fully themed Kirby map. I wanted to make more
themed maps for the first release, but I held myself back and stuck to just one.
V2 will have some more themed maps, though!

Originally, I was going to have some cloud platforming sections and some weird,
messed up pink waterfalls in the map, but I couldn't find anywhere I'd want to
put them. The textures are still in the file in case I ever want to go back to
the idea.

I hope it doesn't end up feeling too similar to PEGG01 thematically - they're
both regal feeling places with bricks and pillars in the sky. I think they're
different enough, but I'll definitely need to spice up my theme variety for V2.


PEGG06

This map has been done for ages... But I'm only just now releasing it.

Initially, I wanted to update in sets of 5 maps, but I'm way too busy and tired
nowadays... so I might as well push this one out while I still can.

I don't really remember where I got the idea for the map from, I think I just
wanted to make a map that was primarily yellow. I also think I wanted to make a
water map (in the sense of there being actual water sectors), but that never
ended up happening.

The map is called "Hello Again" because I thought it'd be cute to welcome players
back to my maps!
...I don't know if players really want to be on them, though...
It'd be more fun if I actually had more maps to release, but at this point I don't
know if I'll ever get around to making any more for this pack. I'll try though!


PEGG07

I don't really know where I got the inspiration for this map! It just kinda
happened. At the time of writing, it's been just over 2 years since I made 06,
so it's been quite a while since I've made one of these!

I made this over a weekend during one of my college semester breaks; I guess
I decided that I had the time, so I should make a map.

A lot of custom desert maps for this game end up feeling very rocky and orange;
I think this is a side effect of just how few yellows the palette has to work with.
Despite that, I wanted to focus more on the yellow, sandy side of things because
I can't think of any maps off the top of my head that do that. I also forbade
myself from using any sort of Tomahawk or Pharaoh textures, because all those
other maps use those tiles. I want my maps to stick out and be memorable, so no
way am I going to use tiles or themes that have been done to death!

In terms of layout, it's not the greatest thing in the world. There's a lot of
areas where sensible map design is sacrificed for the sake of aesthetic qualities.
In particular, some of the sightlines in the map are pretty egregious. I have no
clue how it'll play - I haven't tested it in any real matches yet! We'll just
have to see. I hope it'll at least play well in... whatever that mod with the
instagib cowboys is called. I can't remember for the life of me what it is!

Originally, this map was just called "Cowboys." I changed it because Korby told
me it was a dumb name. Jokes on him, though - I put him on a wanted poster.

I really wanted to call it Cowboys.

Reading my previous notes as I write this, I think it's funny that I wanted to
have more thematic variety in my 'v2' maps... Only for the very first two to both
be maps that are primarily yellow, green and orange. Ultimately I don't think it's
too big of a deal - the maps both have a different enough feel to them. I think
my next map will primarily either be red or blue.

Lastly! When I wrote the notes for 06, I wasn't very happy with my maps overall.
A lot of them had some pretty glaring flaws (some of which are still around),
but I think nowadays I'm pretty happy where things are. I'll keep trying to make
cool content for this game as long as it's reasonable for me to do so. Who knows
how much free time I'll have once I'm out of college, ha.


PEGG08

This is a map that's been a long time in the making. The themeing more than the
exact layout of it. I've always wanted to make a map that used Nuclear Fusion as
the song, because it's one of my all-time favourites. I actually tried to make a
version of this map all the way back in 2021 for Cutstuff Mapping Jam 7, but I was
inhibited by poor texturing ability, difficult map pieces and an overall much
worse sense of how to design maps properly.

For the longest time, there really wasn't a great NES rendition of Nuclear Fusion.
This was something that only somewhat bothered me immensely. I was planning to
commission someone to make one for me, but the people I was interested in giving
money to never ended up re-opening their commissions... so I have to be very
thankful to ISMTUD for both happening to make a great cover and also being nice
enough to let me use it for this map.

This is the first map that I made after graduating college! I made it in the span
of around 2 and a half days - one day for the layout, one day for texturing, and
the final half-day for polish and such. I had a lot of motivation to just... make
stuff, and this was the product of that. I also started and finished PEGG09's 
layout during the half-day, but that map is pretty small and simple.

Despite thinking I got a lot better at level design, I actually think this map
is way more form over function. We'll have to see how it ends up playing, but my
gut instinct is it won't actually be all that fun to play on. That's okay, though.
I'm satisfied with it overall.


PEGG09

This map was made for the sake of making a map in a very short time period. It
ended up taking a bit longer than I would have liked (mainly in figuring out the
visuals and audio), but ultimately it was pretty quick.

I wanted to make a small map that was suited towards duels - it was an interesting
challenge trying to cram as much 'gameplay' as possible into such a tight space.

I know the classes players probably won't end up liking this map because it won't
fit the gamemode all that well - realistically, you can only fit around 6 players
on this map before it starts to get uncomfortable. It does make me a bit sad,
though, because it means this map won't be seen in servers all that often as a
result.

Almost everything about the development process was just throwing stuff at the
wall and seeing if it stuck. I got really lucky, because stuff stuck to the wall
pretty quickly - probably because I was really motivated and had a clear vision
going into it. That's the reason for the map name: "We'll See" if it actually
ends up being any good.

My biggest takeaway from college is that you really can just make things. I want
to continue this philosophy into my work going forward - it's easy to just sit on
ideas for years and years and be too afraid/lazy to start on them. It's easy to
try and wait to be 'good enough' to do something, but then never spending your
time actually getting better at anything. If you just sit down and do something
every once in a while, even if it ends up sucking ass, at least something was
accomplished and can be learned from going forward.

Not everything's going to be a masterpiece, but that's okay. Most of the time,
things are allowed to just exist on their own merit.

That's what matters to me, I think.


Thanks for reading these, if you did! They're mainly just stream-of-consciousness
rambling, but I figured it'd be neat to include them anyways.