OMG, yes, that’s right, I finally managed to produce another WTH podcast.

I’m so sorry for the delay. As with the last one, this is just about the mods. Almost everything is taken from ModDB.

Since it’s been almost two months since the last podcast and we have had an influx of new members/readers thanks to the YouTube channel Valve News Network, let me quickly summarize the podcast.

What The Headcrab is a podcast that updates listeners on what’s been happening in the Source/Gold Source single player modding world. Initially, the podcast covered Reddit, YouTube and GameBanana but it quickly became apparent that there was too much to cover. From episode 6, I decided to focus almost exclusively on mods.

If you would like to know more, please read the What The Headcrab: Introduction.

At some point in the future I may create video versions of these podcasts.

This week’s pick is the Half-Life: Update Mod Dev progress #08. The video (see below) is well made and shows exactly what has been updated and whilst I really want new maps, playing Half-Life again with some new features might be fun too.

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• Grey: New Animator and Progress
  Putting aside the content of the post for a moment, this piece of news brings up an interesting point. The Grey is now being built on UE4 and I kinda feel cheated that I checked out the news. Anyway, fans of the Source mod are probably still following the news. This post talks about a new animator and some weapons mechanics.
• PUNT: Rebirth Development as of 2/22/16
  This post talks about the progress being made and shows some pretty screenshots. It also mentions that it’s going to be using the Source SDK Base 2013 Singleplayer map format meaning it will be compatible with the multitude of Source engine tools available. It’s an interesting looking project but I am still unclear why they aren’t making this in Portal. Anybody know?
• The design confusions with Der Schwarze Nebel
  The timing of this couldn’t be more perfect. I started playing this a couple of days ago and have to admit to being a little confused myself. And after reading this, I’m not much clearer. I’ll be adding the mod to RTSL soon, along with a review, but I want to say now that the mod is pretty cool. It doesn’t try to have a story and there’s very little in the way of progression, not to mention little combat (at least in the sections I have played), it’s more about presenting an atmosphere and feel.
• One more Remod
  I have to admit that I haven’t paid enough attention to these “remods”. I believe the idea is to update broken mods but not just to fix them, but also to polish them a little. I am unclear whether this is done with permission or not. ZikShadow, how does it work? Anyway, I better get around to testing this. Hopefully, I’ll be able to upload these new versions to RTSL too.
• Opposing Force Assault 2015 recap and future plans
  Another new one for me and since I loved Opposing FOrce, I can’t but hope this is going to be fun. This post actually doesn’t really contain much information. There’s a 1.4 Alpha demo, which is strange since anything from 1.0 should be a proper release, but perhaps that’s me being pedantic. Also, the trailer is a complete waste of time with really annoying music – I suggest you avoid it, although I bet you’ll watch it now just to see why I think it’s waste of time and to judge the music. Some of the images look okay, so I will just have to wait for the full release.
• Valentine’s Day Update: Bi-Weekly Edition
  So, “Raising the Bar” is going to be a remake of the story, not just a collection of maps. Okay, good. let’s see what they create. Sounds like they have the right idea by making sure the maps feel and play right before worrying about visuals. There are also a few screenshots which look fairly good.
• Genetic Variation Article #6: Houndeyes, Bullsquids & Logos
  Yet another new mod for me. You’ve probably guessed I don’t really “follow” mods until they are rleeased. Anyway, I kinda like the sound of this one – you play as a combine modified headcrab. Talking of which, does anybody remember this bad boy: Combine Headcrab I should really try and get this working and use it in all my streams. Back to this mod. There’s a video about buildsquids and houndeyes along with a randomly spawning sniper. Which sounds kinda cool but if I am playing as a headcrab I can’t imagine how I am going to outrun a Combine sniper.
• Operation Black Thunder : Remod is now out!
  One more remod from ZikShadow. I might have to recreate a whole new section on the site. I am curious as to how many people actually play these remods. I know I can see the download total but I don’t always feel that’s a good guide to the number of replays. I’ll try to set up a chat with ZikShadow soon.
• Half-Life: Blue Shift: Source: Media Release #6
  No WTH would be complete without at least one update from Aulov Nikolay! This one contains a 12 minute video of him (?) playing through some Xen sections. In case you don’t know he is porting Blue Shift to Source. I am baffled why people do this. Please put all your energy into making something new!
• Half-Life: Update Mod – Development progress update #08
  If my understanding is correct, this mod started simply as a mod to add subtitles but grew into an “update” mod. The video is very cool and shows a few interesting effects. Aghain, if my understandin is correct, this mod won’t add any new maps, just features. Which from my point of view is a shame but it’s still great work. There are also some community questiosn that the author is looking for feedbac on, so be sure to visit the post. Here is the video:
  
• Lost Story: The Last Days of Earth
  And finally for this episode,a tricky question. The Rock Path Collective pose a question “What have a foggy day and 15 sm. wood screw got in common?” I have rephrased their question but I don’t know the answer. Do you? If you do, then you know the topic of their new dev blog.

Here are a couple of things that caught me eye this week.

• Freedom 4 Gamers
  Is a non-profit singleplayer game development organization. Which sounds right up my alley. They seem to be working on something called Above the Catacombs and I’ll be contacting them soon to see how I can help.
• Game developers tell us how they would make Half-Life 3
  PC Gamer has a piece about how other game developers would approach Half-Life 3. I’ll be honest and say I haven’t read it yet, but it probably, might, maybe, could, perhaps interest you.
• Game Grave
  This is a YouTube channel focused on Quake mostly, but I see so many YT channel that have thousands of subscribers with videos with a lot of views and they are mediocre at best and there are some really good channels that deserve more attention and this is one of them. Go check him it. He has a great manner and some interesting commentary.

I am interested to connect with more YT channels that focus on SP Half-Life releases. IF you know of any, please let me know. I’d like to promote them and maybe do some work with them.

Finally, I scroll through ModDB’s list of articles and look for the HL or HL2 icon to guide me as to which piece of news is related to which engine. The problem is that some mods have their own icon and I might miss them, so please don’t hesitate to let me know of SP mods that could interest other users or me.

Well, that’s it for this episode. If I missed an update from further back than two weeks ago, sorry about that. I just can’t cover more than two weeks in each episode. Hopefully, from this point forward, I will create a new WTH episode every two weeks.

If you like what I am doing, help me create more and better content – please support me on Patreon.

Background music is a PS2 Menu loop by Clamshaw: YouTube or Steam.