Rob Smolders is a level designer for Counter-Strike. He is the creator of Rotterdam.
Biography[]
Rob Smolders started level design at the age of 11 with Duke Nukem 3D.[1] He eventually moved on to the Quake series and then to level design for Half-Life.[2] Smolders got introduced to Counter-Strike when his friend had downloaded the Beta 2 release.[1]
Rob got hooked by Counter-Strike around the release of Beta 3 and picked up level design around the release of Beta 4.[1] His initial attempts at level design were not that successful and he never finished these maps.[2] The first map he finished was Robbery which he was hoping would be included in Counter-Strike 1.0, but it didn't get included at the time as he sent it in too late.[1] However when he finished his second map, Rotterdam, and showed it to Minh Le, he liked it so much that it was included in Counter-Strike 1.1.[1]
For Counter-Strike 1.3, Smolders rebuilt both his maps in the hopes that the updated Rotterdam would get a better reception by the community and that Robbery would become an official map.[2] However, Jess Cliffe didn't want to take another look at the map Robbery since he had already seen it when Smolders tried to get it included into Counter-Strike 1.0.[2] Rotterdam was also removed to make room for Torn,[2] thus neither of his maps were included in the new version.
Following his venture into Counter-Strike mapping, he was working on single-player maps.[2] He also contributed a few maps to another Half-Life mod, The Specialists.
Professionally, Smolders worked as a level designer for the company Eximion in 2009.[3] Since then, he has been working in web development.[3]
List of maps[]
Official maps[]
| Map name | Game(s) | Responsibilities | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rotterdam | 
|
Level designer | 2001 |
Custom maps[]
| Map name | Game(s) | Responsibilities | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overrun (de) | 
|
Level designer | 2000[n 1] |
| Robbery (cs) |
|
Level designer | 2001 |
References
Notes[]
- ↑ Smolders never finished the map but released a beta version