Stick Veterans: the Art in Maps

These past few months I have been taking a much needed break from developing Stick Veterans. While I miss it, and there are tons of stuff I really want to add to it, personal life issues and a pressing schedule are not helping much lately.

I do, however, make sure to regularly check and moderate the maps that you guys have been making and uploading. It's not an easy job, as I need to playtest each map to see that it plays well, and many maps often need corrections.

It is also often, however, that I see very well-made maps. At moments like these, I happily play through these creations and feel grateful for seeing such inspiration and dedication in the people that play the game. One of these people who stands out, and who is the reason I am writing this post, is Magnus, also known as 50nicru54 or i34934. (tough nicknames, I know.)

I was very skeptical about writing this post; I never want to make people feel I highlight someone's work while underestimating others, and I must clarify that this is not the case. But understanding the amount of work that said person has committed, I believe he deserves this much recognition.

Magnus has been showing off impressive map design skills as well as ingenious map concepts for a long time. His maps have been increasingly varied and well-made, from minimalistic maps like "ztwelve" (above) to overly elaborate creations like "ArkiJogurti" or "opallattica" (below).

Maps like these bring out a form of art that I would personally never expect to see in a simplistic game like Stick Veterans. Magnus manages to transcend that simplicity by going over the tedious, mind-boggling work of shaping simple blocks into arbitrary forms.

The resulting maps are so meticulous that my laptop sometimes takes up to 2-3 minutes to load them. "spherion11", containing hundreds of blocks to form its spherical shapes, almost crashed my computer.

There are lots of other users who have made incredible maps too, but there is another reason I specifically chose to mention Magnus: his long-lasted dedication in the game. He has made a staggering 85 maps to date; he uploaded his first map, "infiniciti", on May 2017, and his 85th map was only uploaded today.

I hope good work like this will inspire people to try out their hand in map editing, and bring out their own unique style and creativity with it. Ultimately, the only person you have to impress is yourself, and this is all you should strive for.

-Kostas