Forging Reach

In anticipation of Halo Master Chief Collection and Halo 5, I have decided to bring all my blogs under a single web site with the domain n...

The invaders' approach to the Tier 1 Objectives should include cover and encouraging choices to the forward position and then to the Obj...

One of the more interesting features of Invasion is how the Defenders can observe the Invaders' movements off their initial spawns. As m...

Invasion maps are large out of necessity. There are twelve players total, and they need the necessary space to be treated as 6 individual te...

Each Play List Map has Alpha Objectives to the left of Elites and to the right of Spartans, regardless of which Species is Defender. However...

Invasion, a Campaign, is a Story. The Story comes alive against the backdrop created by the Aesthetics - the aggregate of the Artistic Eleme...

Like any Reach Game Type, the player waiting to respawn can view the game play through switching of camera views. But unlike most Game Types...

Bro Spawning is a fundamental Game Element in Invasion, so naturally an Invasion map needs to make effective use of this feature. An Invasio...

Tier 2 introduces Power Weapons for both Species. Power Weapons do not distract players as much as vehicles can, but they do present risks f...

Tier 2 introduces vehicles for both Species. The presence of vehicles can create a distraction for players to deviate from pushing into or d...

The Forward Position is any area that is significantly forward from the Invaders' Spawns that can be used as an ad-hoc staging area from...

Tier 1 presents the most Invasion unique game play of all, because it lacks power weapons, relying instead upon the Invader Middle Team outw...

As we discussed earlier, it is dangerous for a Defender to make a decision - to abandon one Objective to save the other. This is the decisio...

Tier 1 begins a campaign with no vehicles and no power weapons. At best, you tend to see a couple of precision weapons (Needle Rifle, DMR), ...

Following the discussion from the last lesson, the barriers naturally found within the canvases themselves (e.g., Breakpoint's backbone ...

Both Spire and Boneyard use electronic barriers to prevent players from entering the Tier 2 areas. Breakpoint has a different type of barrie...

There has always been a running debate as to whether Invasion maps should expand or progress - whether the map should grow in size and retai...

The Core Tier plays like CTF. But unlike an abstract Flag, the Core actually has Story value and brings the Game alive. In real life, a Flag...

Assault Tiers play differently from Territory Tiers. Instead of dividing the Defenders between two Objectives, the Defenders quite often are...

For Territory Tiers, the Game Type defines, and the Play List Maps all utilize, both an Alpha Objective and a Bravo Objective. As mentioned ...

Perhaps the most fundamental Element of the Game Type (not the map) is the conflict between the Spartans and Elites - a conflict between Spe...

Invasion is a campaign. Like any campaign, Invasion has phases to its campaign that must be accomplished in linear sequence. The Invasion Pl...

This article will discuss the conditional elements that turn on and off Respawn Zones in the Reach game play for bomb and flag game types. T...

I have begun to put together this collection of high altitude views of some of the canvases. I will add more to this post as I create them (...

I recently read No More Wrong Turns , an article that discusses how to help players navigate your level with less confusion and errors. I th...

Updated!   When a forger wishes for some objects to appear on the map for only some game types and not others, he has two tools available ...

So I was recently working on an infection map and getting feedback on it. It was the map that I submitted to the Forgetacular contest some t...

Ever since the introduction of armor abilities with Halo: Reach, there has been a steady flow of criticism regarding Bungie's decision t...

Quite a bit of information has been provided to forgers by Bungie on how the spawn engine functions, even so much as to explain some of the ...

This article will list known bugs with the spawn engine in Halo: Reach. This article is a complementary article to the Respawn Zone Tutoria...

Some time back, I wrote an article about forging an illusion - how to use perception to hide the blocks behind a theme or structure. But t...

I came across a thread that had one post with interesting tips & tricks that I wanted to save for myself. But instead of keeping it on ...

(Again Updated! ) If you ever tried to make a floor out of the Coliseum walls, you undoubtedly came across the issue where the walls get o...

The question arose if a kill boundary could be used as a wall, and if it could be removed during game play. From my answer I thought this w...

Predictability is a critical key to any design. If a map requires a specific behavior, then the forger must be capable of guaranteeing tha...

Creating a theme for your map may require creating an illusion from the blocks available in the Forge World palette - an illusion created b...

With the misinformation about Respawn Zones present in the forging community today, this article is a refreshing look at the Respawn Zone f...

This article will discuss the use of spawn points when forging Reach. It covers both initial spawn points and respawn points, and provides a...

In an earlier article on Respawn Zones , I discussed the Halo: Reach spawn engine model as it was presented to us by Bungie. However, the...

A look at setting up a spawn system to provide a unique experience with Invasion, to support the story line, to promote team work, and cove...