Junction

### Goal

Collect 3 documents in the abandoned facility and survive until Sniper's van arrives to the rescue.

### Difficulty

Hard

**Junction** is a Survival map.

## Layout

**Junction** is a ported Slender Fortress map from an original control point map called cp\_junction, which is sometimes played in the Casual mode.

The original junction as the control point map gets the most negative reactions and ratings from the players.

However, the ported map plays incredibly well in the Slender Fortress and is regarded as the best port in the Slender Fortress so far in 2021 (April). Anyone who wants to port maps into Slender Fortress is always advised to look at *slender\_junction* to understand its success.

#### Playing Room

The original area got turned into an abandoned facility. It's heavily overgrown, filled with broken glass and other broken architecture, as well as with fire barrels and splattered blood in some places.

The playing room in most places is pitch dark, though some places do still have electricity working, especially on the control points, which are powered by orange generators. The use of darkness is implemented very well, which does not annoy the player but instead challenges them in a good way.

Since the facility got abandoned, many more areas became accessible to anyone who wanders there - the most noticeable details are broken fences and doors. The RED team spawns in the area which used to be inaccessible, which is also where the Sniper van arrives in the rescue because it has a gate door powered by another generator.

The former BLU spawn is also bigger due to the gates being slammed down to the ground. However, during the map's development, it has been noticed that there was a dead-end. Therefore, you'll find a small vent that leads to another room so that players can escape from the boss, that is if they are being chased.

HallwaysFacilityControl Point
#### Waiting Room

The waiting room is based on a facility located in rainforests which include certain underground areas. It has been designed in a way to solve the boredom that most of the Slender Fortress maps cause players to experience. The area includes a bunch of activities for the BLU players to have fun in. It also has good use of colors and textures, making players feel better in terms of mood.

The very first thing that BLU player will see is the portrait of Rick May. He is the voice actor for Soldier, who passed away due to a stroke and the complications related to COVID-19 on April 8, 2020. The portrait plays 13 Soldier's voice lines. The voice lines got edited to include the echo. Near the portrait, the players would immediately hear the Orchestrated Rocket Jumping Waltz music.

One of the most beautiful areas is the green room. It includes a variety of different plants, trees, and animals, such as omnivores, carnivores, and herbivores. The area allows players to explore it in any possible way.

Some cardboard animals are sentient and produce sounds. The player can jump down the bridge and take a closer at the animals. Some birds can also be found in the trees. However, if the player hurts themselves by jumping from a higher ledge or a high tree, the green room has two Medic's crossbows that act as dispensers.

The only hostile animal that can be found is the cardboard bear. It only becomes hostile if it receives damage from a nearby player. Other than that, the bear is neutral.

When it comes to activities, the players will be able to find two kinds of PvP arenas. One is located in the semi-outside green area, which allows everybody to use guns. And the other PvP area is a boxing area - only melee weapons can be used there for obvious reasons.

One of the most interesting machines found in the huge PvP arena is the blue page detector machine. Whenever the page gets picked up, one of the blubs becomes green. If at least one player escapes the RED playing area, the last bulb will lit a red color.

The waiting area also includes a maze and a quite challenging parkour room that gets harder over time. It includes three Merasmus' traps. One has a disappearing platform, the other stops you in mid-air, and the last one slides down to the water. If one of the traps gets triggered, Merasmus always speaks and uses his magic to taunt the player. It is worth noting that this parkour teleports players instead of killing them for trying. Teleportation causes the particles and the sound to be played. It is considered to be the only Slender Fortress map that does that. Killing players for trying is a bad game design, and this map solves it.

Completing the maze or the parkour room will lead the player to the disco bar, which includes the pool table, the slot machine, the jacuzzi, and the bar. It needs to be said that when completing the parkour area, the players will be rewarded with the teleporter effect, which will stay on them forever until a new round starts. The maze, however, does not include any rewards.

WalkwaySpawnPvP ArenaParkourMazeDiscoBoxingCreditsEscape Spawnpoint
## Development

There have been planned to include a lot more rooms in the BLU waiting area during the map's development. However, due to the Source engine's limits, eight rooms could not be made. If you go to the huge PvP area, you would see that the other three doors have no entry signs. In version B1, if you touch those signs, a private message would be sent to a player saying that the following rooms could not be created due to the limits of the Source engine.

Originally, the PvP area, which allows players to use guns, wasn't planned to be created right next to the BLU spawn. Instead of that room, there was supposed to be a similar green room. But instead of the plants and trees, you would see water, waterfalls, and pipes. The green room was supposed to have a pillar that would display the names of people like the map creator, helpers, etc.

The boxing area was planned to be created in one room which would also include the Tic-Tac-Toe minigame, the swimming pool, and the vent. The vent would have two paths. One would lead to the parkour, and then to the DJ stage with a bar. The other path - to the labyrinth and then to the camera room.

However, during the development, the rocket jumping area was created over there for one reason or another. It was almost finished and quite playable - it was tested even multiple times by an experienced rocket jumper. But sadly, due to the Source engine's limits, the brush limit has been reacted, and the area got scrapped yet again.

        The area got replaced with a boxing area alone. It was inspired by a Russian Minecraft Trade map and the Minecraft Neon map. The boxing area was planned to have a slightly bigger room, so it could have space for the audience to watch the boxing ring from the top. Sadly again, due to the brush limit, the area had to become a bit smaller.

Speaking of Minecraft Neon, *slender\_junction* uses the same Disco floor from the Neon map.

By looking more at the drawing, it can be seen that there are tennis courts with the lift surrounded by trees in one area. Then there is another room which includes a bar with a pool table, chairs, tables and a working vending machine which would dispense different drinks - each would have different effects on the player. Some catwalks would include storage. Even the boss mini-game area was originally planned to be included. The area for bumper tracks with ducks was planned too. To make duck collecting more fun, a collected duck counter was planned to be created in the middle.

The PvP area, which would include guns, looks completely different on the drawing. It included more and bigger metal containers with stairs instead of jump pads. There were plans to include some trees in the middle, just like you would see on the original map. However, on the sides, there have been thoughts to include attached apartments on two walls. Most of those apartments would be dark. But one apartment would have party lights that would constantly change colors and play Caramelldansen music across the PvP arena.

The layout of the maze was generated by the mazegenerator.net website. It was later slightly altered in Adobe Photoshop. Different variants have been generated before. The chosen width and the height of the maze were 15x15 in the orthogonal (square cells) style.

The map was originally planned to only work on Glubbable's servers. However, the map-maker later realized the popularity of other Slender Fortress servers. However, due to the ambitious ideas and details, the map isn't quite stable for the Modified Slender Fortress gamemode. It appeared to be that some server owners do not have good hardware and/or plugins for their servers that could run the map without crashing.

Therefore, four versions of the map have been created so that the map could be played everywhere. The differences between the maps include:

* B1 - The original map.
* B2 - The BLU machine that signals how many pages have been picked up by the RED players gets replaced by a funny overlay and a small medical crate. This version also removes a few spotlights and physics from the bottles in the bar, making them completely solid.
* B3 - Just like B2, but it removes all of the spotlights (except for the escape van), removes vent sounds in the parkour, a couple of animals (including all birds), and eliminates the fog in the disco. The pool table and the slot machine become unusable as well.
* B4 - Just like B3, but it removes the Disco area and the huge PvP arena. The player will not be able to enter the credits room through Rick May's portrait. Instead, they must complete either parkour or the maze to enter it. The credits room doors also now lead to different places. The right door will lead the player to the spawn while the left one - to the green room.

District: Zen and NxN currently use the B3 version, while Disc-FF uses the B2 version. Some servers do not have plugins that could reduce the amount of active edicts, resulting in crashes depending on traffic. B1 version however, is available on Glubbable's Servers.

## Trivia

* This map has one of the most detailed waiting rooms and many more activities for BLU players to enjoy compared to other existing Slender Fortress maps in 2021 (April).
* It is recommended for the RED players to avoid standing next to any railings since the bosses can jump over them so that some areas are not camped and exploited. This makes those areas dangerous.
* All of the custom models were taken from TF2maps.net. All of them are credited in the secret credits room - something that other Slender Fortress maps do not do.
* Rick May's portrait was created by a Redditor named u/AndrewBurt120.
* Some Valve models were edited by Marquis.
* PootisGodAnimations helped with providing the feedback the entire time. He also helped to provide feedback on the scrapped Rocket jumping area, which later got scrapped.
* This map is also available on Glubbable's Servers.