OTAD#8 - surfing
the surreal worlds of cs surf maps
I recently stumbled upon a gem of a YouTube channel, KSFRecords. This channel posts the world record on different surf levels in counter-strike. CS surfing is such a weird niche, who would have thought a FPS game would become an abstract racer, where bunny hopping and slope strafing become core gameplay. The maps are all about difficult to execute moves, where speed, momentum and precision are your only keys to success. Because one travels so fast when surfing, mappers typically settle for outlandish landscapes, eerily empty (as many source maps tend to feel like).
KSFRecords allow you to take a glimpse of these alien worlds, through the eyes of the fastest speedrunners in the game, who all seem to have a fetish for 4-5 letters usernames: caff, levi, tucks, favs. Their recent 2020 retrospective had me sitting for 20 minutes in awe, astounded by the entire audiovisual experience.
The music choice for their videos is always on point, with a wide variety of genres, from ambient to breaks through jungle and deep house. I cannot wait to use some of these videos, slow them the fuck down, add some trippy shit on top with hydra, and project this at a party when we will finally be able to gather with other human beings again.
Hope you enjoy these abstract landscapes and soothing beats, props to Bass39Flo Ziyal who produced the tracks of the video I shared above. Long live surfing.