During my Advanced Seminar in Level Design class I took during my Junior year in college, I was given the opportunity to create a level using whichever engine I wanted throughout the span of several months. Being an avid fan of arena shooters, I thought now was the perfect time to learn how to create levels for one of my favorite series, Quake. I chose Quake Live (as opposed to my more played game Quake Champions), due to its robust design scene and powerful building tools using GTK Radiant. I chose to create a gothic-inspired crumbling cathedral as a result of Quake Live having the best materials and lighting to successfully pull off such a setting.

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In the end, I learned a lot about not just the engine, but about designing arena-style maps in general. One of my biggest issues was testing, since Quake Live had no dedicated servers, and Peer-to-Peer connections were not allowed on my college's wifi connection. In the end, I got help from many other members of the map-making community by uploading it to the Steam workshop and having them test it on their own machines. These testing opportunities by experts in the Quake Live mapping scene resulted in a magnitude of changes to the final layout and flow, resulting in an extremely polished and enjoyable experience for anyone to take part in.