Jake Miller

In “Kremlin in the Sky,” three platforms provide the player with more choices and more difficult decisions than the original map.  The sky islands feature a center island with the sniper rifle and two side islands, accessible via lift, that offer the option of jumppad or teleport for transportation back to the main gameplay area.

This center island limits mobility by its size and a scripted feature.  In order to prohibit players from simply jumping onto the platform and shooting down anyone who ran down the sky bridge, floating rocks obscure the sight of any player that makes it to the sniper platform.  This makes it near impossible to snipe the main gameplay area from here and requires a decision of the player: hide and hope to get the jump on the next jumper or take a lift to one of the adjacent platforms.

From each of the side platforms, players may begin sniping with much larger lines of sight, limited only by the quick nature of the gameplay (the main gameplay area features frantic spawns and deaths, requiring a sniper take aim quickly) and by a small number of columns that block higher portions of the main gameplay area.

The side platforms contain two modes of transportation: jumppad and teleporter.  The jumppad shoots players into the flow of the map, the safer of the two options.  While traveling, the player may take aim on targets and kill merrily on arrival.  However, the jumppad voyager also runs the risk of dying mid-air to a rocket launcher.

The teleporter blinks players onto the land bridge that connects the higher portions of the main gameplay area, a heavily traveled portion of the map.  While this choice allows players to escape the possible mid-flight death of a jumppad, it also requires the player to quickly orient himself and escape would-be assassins that they may bump into on arrival.