An essential (and enjoyable) part of making game maps for WolfQuest is visiting the real locations, so we can see, feel, and sometimes smell what they're really like. We've visited the Tower Fall area on all four of our visits to the park since 2017 -- and most of the shots in today's video come from that first video, when we were still thinking of Tower Fall as the next episode of the game. Now, of course, with the saga out, Tower Fall is simply another DLC map, coming later this year.
The Tower Fall map is west of the main game maps and south of Hellroaring Mountain. Back when we started planning this map, it was going to be square and only 4x4km (which is what we were originally planning for all the game maps). But we soon expanded that to 7x7km -- and then, looking at the topography of this area, we realized that this needed to be rectangular rather than square. So now the map extends from the actual Tower Fall waterfall in the north corner of the map to Mount Washburn in the southwest corner.
In our visits, we hiked down to the Tower Creek-Yellowstone confluence, and up along the Yellowstone River shore, and along Tower Creek above the fall -- but we could not hike into the heart of the map. Almost all of that area, the main extent of the Antelope Creek watershed, is a Bear Management Area, where hiking is not allowed. But at least we have main Grand Loop Road that runs the length of the game map. It offers some spectacular views of Antelope Creek and its tributaries. Wide open spaces, rolling grasslands with patches of forest -- just what wolves like!
We'll share more about the Tower Fall map development as we go, so stay tuned!