One night, you wake up in a room you don't recognize... Once the surprise wears off, and you shake off the cobwebs, you realize that you're in a hospital bed! But you don't remember how or why...
You stumble out into the oddly deserted halls, and make your way to the front waiting room, where you run into some other, equally confused patients...
Not knowing what's going on, the group decides to wait things out for the night... After all, what safer place to be than a hospital?
---------------------------------------
As you've seen and/or read already, one of the new maps is a hospital (Homicide Hospital?)
Currently the most complex* and largest map in terms of "square footage" (the campground map is slightly larger dimensionally, but it is just one "floor", while this one is 4 floors), the Hospital attempts to recreate the feeling of an actual Hospital, being laid out with wings, multiple floors, turning hallways, etc...
It's laid out in an overall cross/plus shape (the generic symbol for hospitals), with a stairwell and elevator (yep!) in the central hub...
Ground floor...
I was aiming for that true maze-like feel that many hospitals have (with so many twists, turns, and branches in the halls, that you'd inevitably get lost if not for the frequent directional signs) but it ended up much more straight-forward than I intended... I'm still happy with the result, though...
Outside of the hospital it is night, with the sounds of nearby street traffic being heard... While inside, you hear the hum of fluorescent lighting, and the occasional heart monitor flatlining (the currently used sounds could use some sprucing up, but I'm tired of hunting for better ones)
The map includes virtually everything you'd expect to find in a hospital: waiting rooms/areas, a cafeteria, staff lounge, gift shop, operating rooms, storage rooms, a laundry room, a loading dock, a parking garage, an emergency room entrance (ambulance parked outside!), elevators and stairs, a maternity ward complete with birthing rooms and a nursery, a chapel/prayer room, restrooms (of course), 12 color-coded patient overight rooms (of course), lab rooms (including x-ray and MRI rooms), staff offices, a conference chamber, a rooftop helipad, and even a morgue!
It also features emergency lighting and exit signs that all stay lit if the indoor power is turned off...
And last but not least, the weapons...
You can find many, many things that you'd find in a real hospital, like scalpels, surgical drills, scissors, syringes (yes, complete with a poisoning effect), crutches, bone saws, fire extinguishers, and even a defibrillator in addition to the more mundane things like maintenance tools and supplies (crowbar, wrench, pipe, etc.)
I can't wait for all of you to see it for yourselves! (which, incidentally, will be very, very soon... we're taking days)
*Unfortunately, its size and complexity makes the AI pathfinding routine bog down pretty hard, causing the game to make a pause at each step the AIs try to make... There should be no problem in all-player rounds, but rounds with AI can get to be a slight pain...
