Greetings! Time to Die has been out for just over 4 months now, and the reception has been amazing. Thank you to everyone who has downloaded it and given feedback, positive or negative. It's my first L4D2 campaign, but it won't be my last!

While I'm taking a break from working on my next campaign, I thought I'd share some fun facts about my debut effort and the mindset I had going into this project.

1. This campaign was originally 3 maps instead of 4

Before I even opened the level editor, Time to Die was planned from the beginning as a 3-map campaign about time travel. However, I made the campaign in chronological order, and I realized I had problems in Map 3.

I had built the Castle, Orange, and Hell sections to be far more ambitious than planned, and thus I didn't have space or "budget" for the finale house. I also realized that players who died in the finale would be pissed off if they had to walk for 10-20 minutes just for a chance to try again. Therefore, the finale got its own map. No regrets.

2. Why time travel? Because the author is lazy!

I specifically chose to make a time travel campaign because I thought it was the easiest way to distract players from my bad mapping skills. I had too many ideas and I couldn't commit to just one, and I also thought I wasn't good enough to make a campaign that looked nice and felt believable if I was constrained to a single environment. Thus, I solved all my problems at once with time travel. Frankly, I'm just surprised no one had ever thought of this before!

3. The spaceship was made entirely in-engine (and it's NOT from Star Wars)

I have zero experience making 3D models and props, so all the custom assets in Time to Die were molded into shape inside Valve's level editor using the tools that you're SUPPOSED to use for creating square buildings and box canyons. The logs, the wagons, the hologram, even the spaceship -- all made from textured blocks. I like to call them "brush models." It's pretty much the worst way to make a model, but it's also the fastest.

Also, I've seen at least two people say the spaceship is the Z-95 Headhunter from Star Wars, but I'm not that clever. I intended it to be a legally distinct X-Wing rip-off, nothing more. Maybe great minds think alike?

4. There's a Nintendo Switch inside the treehouse

I promise the reference to the "Nintendo Treehouse" translation/marketing team was purely coincidental. After making the treehouse in Map 1, I decided to put a drink cooler in it to make it seem more lived-in. And after that, I couldn't resist making a little Nintendo Switch as a dumb inside joke. I try to avoid referencing current affairs in my maps because L4D2 takes place in 2009, but I like to think the Switch is foreshadowing the time portals.

As for the inside joke, story time. I brought my brand new Switch to a friend's house in college, and to make things easier for myself, I put the Switch and its carrying case inside the cooler I was holding. Said cooler happened to be full of alcoholic beverages, and I forgot one of the drinks had been opened and resealed. This drink leaked all over the inside of the cooler, and although my Switch narrowly escaped harm, one of my controllers was permanently busted. Drink responsibly, kids.

5. The ghost watches you in the spooky apartment

Most folks have figured this out, but the apartment in Map 2 is a direct fan recreation of P.T., the infamous demo for a canceled Silent Hill game. The looping hallway is a little wider than it was in the original demo for gameplay reasons, but otherwise I tried to make it look as close as possible in L4D2's engine.

In the spirit of the original P.T., there's a twitchy ghost lady that haunts you as you loop around the hallway, and if you know where (and when) to look, you can spot her watching you from just out of reach...

6. This entire campaign was made by one person

When I say the entire campaign, I mean it. Other than the P.T. audio and the stuff that was already in Left 4 Dead 2, I did EVERYTHING. The concept, the level design, the AI navigation, the testing, the brush models and custom textures, the graffiti, the poster, the logo (which is honestly the thing I'm most proud of)... all of it was done by yours truly Kyle H. McCloud. No wonder this took almost a year to finish -- 11.5 months, to be exact!

Frankly, I think it's a miracle my passion project functions at all. Because of a scheduling issue, I didn't even have a single multiplayer playtest until after the campaign was released publicly. It's stupid, yes, but it's also how I roll. I make maps for fun with no outside help, and my only goal is to avoid doing anything that would piss off the average player.

7. Time to Die was directly inspired by Haunted Forest

Haunted Forest is a classic campaign by Snow (aka Dr. Boo) about fighting zombies and ghosts through a series of horror trope environments, and it's been my favorite custom campaign for as long as I've owned L4D2. Funnily enough, they also collaborated with Nipper to make a campaign with a vaguely similar premise to Time to Die (called Night Terror), but I didn't play that one until AFTER my campaign was finished.

Anyway, I did some light dabbling in Source modding way back when I was in high school, but I had never released anything to the public -- long story short, my map file for a big TF2 project was corrupted and I swore I'd never touch the Source Engine again. However, I'd always dreamed of making a Left 4 Dead campaign... and after playing through Haunted Forest yet again with some buddies on Halloween 2019, I decided it was better late than never.

That's all for now!

Maybe I'll share more fun facts eventually, but either way, I promise the next campaign won't take a year to make. Have a good one!