5 stories. Each with a dark secret.
A secret that you have to play to discover.
Are you ready?
- Title: HalloweenVilleThree
- Filename: hl2-ep2-sp-mc-halloweenvillethree-v1.1.7z
- Size : 72.60MB
- Author: Mark AKA Strontvlieg, Tiop, Derek AKA 1upD, Jacob Heywood and Krassell
- Date Released: 05 November 2016
I want modders to create a map that scares players. Simple jumpscares will not do.
Atmosphere and build-up are what is needed, along with a suitable setting.
There MUST still be combat and/or puzzle solving. Simply making a scary scene is not acceptable for this challenge.
Listed as they are displayed in the mod itself:
Ominous Presence by Mark AKA Strontvlieg
There’s No One Around And Your Phone Is Dead by Tiop
Shadow Walker by Derek AKA 1upD
Wendigo by Jacob Heywood
Crawlspace by Krassell
The winner will be chosen by a public vote lasting 10 days from date of release.
Which is your favourite map from HalloweenVilleThree
- Crawlspace by Krassell (14%, 10 Votes)
- Wendigo by Jacob Heywood (73%, 54 Votes)
- Shadow Walker by Derek AKA 1upD (11%, 8 Votes)
- There’s No One Around And Your Phone Is Dead by Tiop (0%, 0 Votes)
- Ominous Presence by Mark AKA Strontvlieg (3%, 2 Votes)
Total Voters: 74
Loading ...Brane Scan by Kelly Bailey from Half-Life 2
1.0 – This version. Has chapter and background images taken from the very first few moments of each map. In addition, the Steam gridview icons also use the same images.
The RunThinkShootLive.Com introduction video was made by Jeff Muñoz (ThatoneJeff)” and he also significantly helped with logo design – thanks Jeff, you ROCK!
Rob Martens for converting the RTSL introduction video into .bik format.
Five gridview icons are included in this file. To use the included grid view icon, select “Gridview” in Steam (top right corner).
Right click on “HalloweenVilleThree: RTSL” and select “Set Custom Image”.
Then browse to the SourceMods folder and then to HalloweenVilleThree_RTSL/steam-gridview-icons folder and select the image. Then click “Set Image” and that’s it.
Of course, you can create your own custom image if you prefer.
Download directly into Gauge [72.60MB]
You MUST have Gauge installed before using this link.
Download to your HDD [72.60MB]
You can still use it with Gauge once you have downloaded it.
Copy the “HalloweenVilleThree_RTSL” folder into your “SourceMods” folder.
Restart or start Steam.
HalloweenVilleThree: RTSL should now be listed in your “Library” tab.
WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.
Each map has 5 screenshots.
1600 x 900
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4,297Overall
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0Today
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6Last 7 days
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20Last 30 days
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184365 days
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 8 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 1 Hours, 7 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 53 Mins by ArctixSnowPup
Longest: 1 Hours, 40 Mins by Tiop
Total Time Played: 10 Hours, 3 Mins
If you believe this release is missing important tags, please suggest them in a comment?
Hold on – is it just my imagination, or were there only four maps this morning? I think I’m getting spooked.
I’m going to download it again
The 1.1 version has the fifth map.
Crawlspace is not on the file?
Anyways, 4 average entries, well it was better than H2Ville last year,
Ominous Presence : was rather disappointing, some scares here and there, but then the usual headcrab zombies and an abrupt ending, meh :/
There’s No One Around and your phone is dead : VERY short and the ending was a bit funny/unexpected. I think this was probably mapped in half an hour.
Shadow Walker : far better. Good setting and a nice final hide-and-seek fight, it was scary and unnerving.
Wendigo : Pretty long and boring in the first part, but the last part was better with a gameplay device I’ve seen before on a GoldSrc mod featuring a janitor, CaseClosed.
Overall, short but average quality. Seen better… Seen worse… (seen everything…)
I will edit this post when the last entry will be released.
Manually
Medium
1 Hour, 30 Minutes
Not the first version, no. The 1.1 version has Crawlspace.
I have released a 1.1 version, which has another map. As I was streaming today, I got a Steam Friends message asking why I hadn’t included a certain map and whether I thought it wasn’t suitable.
I had never received the map but the messenger sent me another email and I got that one. The map has been added to the mod and the poll reset.
Ok, thank you.
So, [b]Crawlspace[/b] : An unexpected map somewhat broken (the author advises not to save or load because of bugs, but it somehow works, well), where you play… an Antlion Grub. Well, you have no HP, you die if people touch you, and you must flee in mouse holes. Somewhat funny.
In the end, [spoiler]you find a warm place to grow up and you get a cutscene where the mature Antlion kills the people in the house. Revenge. [/spoiler]
In the end, I won’t change my rating, Crawlspace is the most unique/original of all these entries but I’ll vote SHADOW WALKER as the winner, the overall setting and the last part really got me.
SPOILERS THE WHOLE REVIEW
I didn’t beat the first two legitimately unfortunatly, the first one had a stacking puzzle which I couldn’t be bothered to do since the barrels kept falling beneath my feet, the second one was pretty cool with an SCP-like enemy but it’s possible to lock yourself out of the encounter area and be trapped forever.
The Shia Labeouf one was pretty funny but could be beaten in about a minute, some more references to the song or an instrumental of it when he starts chasing could’ve made this map more fun.
Wendigo was my favourite of the lot since it actually scared me, the first 3 quarters were very predictable but then the Wendigos appear and some of the encounters are actually scary like the first encounter with the glowing eyes, the peeking through the window and the part where you’re jumped after fixing the generator, the generator breaking was pretty predictable but I wasn’t expecting to be rushed like that.
Crawl Space is actually a very nice concept but not very scary, I like how the stealth was pulled off and it actually worked for the most part aside from the lack of checkpoints, maybe it could’ve loaded a new map half-way through to generate a checkpoint. There seems to be a graphical error with a giant black square visible through walls for some reason though.
Halloween was a few days ago, but it’s always a great time to play some creepy maps. By far and away, my favorite in this pack was Wendigo. Not even close. But let’s take a look at all the entries.
There’s nothing scarier than an undetailed room, huh? With all due respect though, Ominous sets a trend that all the maps in this pack follow – they start the player weak and usually without a weapon and they don’t rely on oppressively dark areas. And that’s welcome to see. Really. It’s nice to be able to see things.
There’s not too much to say about this one. It starts off with you feeling quite vulnerable, but loses a lot of its edge once it arms you with a Pistol and, subsequently, an SMG to fight Zombies. It also ends very abruptly. Consider it an appetizer for things to come.
I’ll have spent more time writing this paragraph than playing it. Not scary as much as it’s just silly, you crawl into a hedge maze with a laughing man who inexplicably kills you just by touching you. You meander through the maze and reach two houses, one with a crowbar, the other with the killer you promptly beat with said crowbar. And that’s it. One odd thing about this map is that the man seems to be attached to a tracktrain, which makes his movements very abrupt and unnatural. I guess I could say this map didn’t outstay its welcome, but we’ll see the same idea done much better in the next map.
You’re late to work and arrive only to find everyone gone and the place locked down in quarantine. You wander around finding ways to open doors and go ever-deeper into the facility. The creepiness of this opening bit is undermined by familiar music rather than careful ambient sound placement. Eventually, you reach an open laboratory and get stalked by a corpse-faced man with a crowbar. I guess the conceit throughout the map is that this guy has been phasing through the walls and killing people, but that connection wasn’t made clear until he did it to me. Yes, it’s called “Shadow Walker,” so it fits. Not bad.
Wendigo is pretty much in a class by itself. The dark, but not-too-dark visuals are great, the custom sounds add an unfamiliar edge, and the gameplay unfolds quite nicely despite the fact that everything is communicated through environmental cues. You can get lost, but never for long, and that just adds to the tension. The player is vulnerable throughout and the progressive use of disturbing audio as you find and activate the three switches was great. My only qualm with the map came during the confusing underwater section. Not only was it disorienting for reasons you will clearly understand once you get there, but I had a heck of a time finding my way out of it without drowning. Must have reloaded a half-dozen times. But other than that? It’s one of the finest entries in any HalloweenVille.
A proof-of-concept more than a scary map, I don’t want to give away the gimmick of this one because it’s quite surprising and adorable. It’s short and gets its point across without screwing around, which is good considering the author claims save/load doesn’t work for some reason.
As with other Villes I’ll review the maps in this HalloweenThree Ville from best to worst. I have fabricated Ominous Presence, so obviously I’m not going to review that … !
Very close to a ‘WOW’. This is one of the greatest horror-related mods I’ve played here on RTSL/PlanetPhilip. The visuals are simply great and an eerie atmosphere can be felt throughout the mod. As mentioned by others, the tension rises later in the mod as an unknown creature begins to appear more and more prominently. For me, Wendigo is the clear winner in this Ville … !
A good second. Mostly enclosed yet fascinating environment and the enemy took me completely by surprise. Nicely done … !
A very original entry. I had a laugh when a bug got shot followed by “rot in hell!”. Very short with monotonous gameplay, but yet an interesting experiment.
Extremely short; first playthrough took me around 2 minutes. Environment looked pretty good, gameplay wasn’t great.
Ominous Presence – developer commentary:
At this point its already clear I’m not gonna win this Ville, but I’ll be satisfied if I don’t end up on the last position 😛
I threw in some ‘conventional’ enemies like headcrabs and zombies for something to shoot at. I consider the stacking puzzle in the hallway as the greatest con of Ominous Presence and it dawned on me AFTER the deadline I could have placed some other props to stack. The level ends abruptly because I had to cut things short due to the deadline approaching.
Ominous Presence:
For me the best part of Ominous Presence was the opening section. I could hear something moving around near me but I couldn’t tell where it was or even what it was. (though it sounded just like a Stalker)
Once I got my weapons the map sort of lost focus on the horror behind that ‘ominous presence’, but I still thought it was an enjoyable map. I really liked the scare where a zombie punts a flaming barrel – it’s effective as a jump scare but also it’s a really effective trap for the player, giving only a few seconds to jump out of the way before the barrel explodes.
I was disappointed by the ending which just sort of cut it short, although I understand how hard it is to create a complete ending.
There’s No One Around And Your Phone Is Dead:
I helped my friend “Tiop” create this map as his very first entry. He pitched the idea to me as a half-joke, but I told him because the scope of the map was so limited, he could realistically complete it before the deadline.
Completing a map in twenty days is a very intense challenge. For someone who has barely used Hammer before, it’s extremely impressive to submit a map that functions at all.
There’s No One Around And Your Phone is Dead suffers from seriously buggy gameplay in the first section. The monster’s attack pattern doesn’t follow the player well, when he hits you it doesn’t kill, there’s invisible walls that players can get snagged on, and the shape of the kill box means you can get killed at a distance. These implementation problems get in the way of what could have been a well set up chase sequence.
My favorite element of the map was the bear-traps, which I wish could have been used more. (I might have helped make those work, so I could be biased.) Unfortunately they blend in with the terrain too much so there isn’t enough warning for the player to avoid them, which is a little unfair.
Shadow Walker:
Shadow Walker was my entry. One of my biggest disappointments was how linear my design was – I really like nonlinear structures and smart backtracking, but Shadow Walker is pretty much a straight shot from the beginning to the end.
I also had some trouble with the monster AI. Let’s just say that the NPC I used wasn’t set up for melee combat so its pathfinding was a little ineffective. I’m also afraid that I stacked that sequence too much in favor of the player by making it take too long for the creature to ‘Shadow Walk’, which actually made it so slow that it never caught up to DolmoTheDouglas in his playthrough and he didn’t see it until the very end of the level!
Finally, I realized right after I submitted that I made a critical error with a change I made very late into the challenge. I replaced doors that swung open with the vertical sliding doors in the last section. The problem is that you can walk through that kind of door as it shuts – which breaks the game by allowing players to lock themselves out of rooms they need to go into. I’m afraid I might have ruined the experience for some players.
In spite of these issues, I’m very proud of Shadow Walker. It shows such a dramatic increase in quality from my first three maps. Looking back, certain aspects of my previous maps make me cringe or feel embarrassed for making them that way, but I feel like I don’t need to be ashamed of this map at all.
Wendigo:
Wendigo is the clear winner for me. My favorite aspect of Wendigo was how it reused space without feeling too boring. Each time I backtracked through an area I had already been to, I felt even more scared than the first time, because I knew something was following me. There was no lack of direction while I was trying to restore power thanks to the structure of the map and the way you can follow power wires to each of the switches. I’m pretty sure you have to flip each of those switches in order, but it really felt nonlinear because of the way new items like the crowbar opened up pathways I had seen before but couldn’t get to.
The problem with Wendigo for me was the really dark sections. At the very beginning of the map I almost got stuck in the vent because I couldn’t find the entrance to the map! Then each time I was brought into a dark environment I lost my bearings and it took me a while to find my way out.
There was also a section near the end where it took me a very long time to find my way out. That was the part underwater with all of the different rooms. That section was brilliant but I kept getting lost and drowning because I couldn’t figure out which way to go.
I felt like I was missing something from the ending. I was expecting more of a finale and I didn’t quite understand the scene it ended on – perhaps I wasn’t looking in the right direction? Regardless, the atmosphere was top notch throughout.
P.S. Was the Wendigo itself made entirely out of brushes? (and sprites for the eyes) I was trying to figure out how it was made but I couldn’t find any custom model or texture files. I would love to look at the source files for all of these maps.
Crawlspace:
I got a little confused when I saw that suddenly the mod had grown from 4 to 5 maps after I downloaded it. I thought I was going crazy!
I’m really glad this entry made it in. It’s such a fascinating concept and I would love to see it expanded upon in the future. It reminds me a lot of certain sections of the game Aliens Vs. Predator 2, which I really liked.
As a concept this map is 10/10, but unfortunately in practice it was a little bit difficult to play through. Death is always a one hit kill, and when you die you have to go back to the start because according to the opening text, save games will corrupt the map. The perspective change and movement sounds combine with the sheer darkness of the map to make for nauseating gameplay. I loved the map but I didn’t feel good while I was playing.
What I’d really like to know was how the author pulled off such a radical modification to the game without changing the source code. You can’t just adjust things like player height in Hammer as far as I know. The map author must have come up with some ingenious system to do it. Maybe the grub is parented to the player who’s in an invisible section below the map in a constant crouch, with a camera attached to the grub? Maybe he overrode the input controls with some entity I haven’t used before? Maybe it’s a vehicle? I can’t wait to find out how this entry was made.
—–
Overall, this was a really fun Ville to participate in and I think the result is a well balanced horror anthology. None of the maps rely on cheap jumpscares and there’s a lot of atmosphere in each of the entries. Crawlspace adds a unique concept that sets this mod apart from other villes. I give it a Play It Now.
Manually
Medium
1 Hour
[Minor Spoilers]
Hey 1upD, I’m glad you liked Wendigo!
The Wendigo model was made up of three parts:
1- A prop_dynamic of the bald human male, with render mode set to Color (Pure black)
2 – Two other prop_dynamics of a manhack gib model, also set to color black, for the horns
3 – Two env_sprites with a glow effect for the eyes
I would merely find an animation for the male (such as Sit_Chair used for one of the mines spooks), then hold alt and drag the horns and eyes into position.
I could then turn the models on and off with inputs, as well as the eyes, allowing me to appear and disappear the wendigo. I also posed the wendigo itself with a SetAnimation input.
I had to turn off all collision for the models as well, as the player was colliding with the wendigo when it was turned off. Technically speaking the player walks right through a bunch of invisible wendigos every playthrough.
http://puu.sh/s8PnV/9b3ea5ef25.jpg
http://puu.sh/s8Pqg/de26aba520.jpg
That’s awesome. I never would have guessed. How did you think to use gibs like that?
Ominous Presence:
This map to me had a very solid opening and then went downhill at a constant rate. The first room was aesthetically underdeveloped until the player got into the hallway and looked outside. I loved the idea of the player living in a defunded insane asylum or something similar and from there was expecting a really exciting story; unfortunately the story didn’t seem to develop. The initial puzzle was straight forward, but I had difficulty getting the oil barrel to cooperate. After getting into the vent, I wasn’t sure what was going on with the girl, she kind of just vanished, so there are some story elements I seem to have missed. Once the zombies entered the map the fun basically was over for me. The combat was too easy even with the limited ammo, and it didn’t have some story finale that I understood. Overall the map was okay, but it really needed an ending.
The Is No One Around And Your Phone Is Dead:
This is my map so I won’t go really go into detail about it other than it was my first complete map created. I have already learned so much, and I look forward to future entries.
Shadow Walker:
I really like the opening of this map and the visuals, but what this map needed most was time for the story to unravel. The opening was good and the airlock puzzle was fun, but this map could have used more tension to build up the finale. The final boss fight was awesome and I think it was the most rewarding ending by far. Overall this map is good, it just needed to be longer to build up the tension more.
Wendigo:
This map had some amazing parts and some very mediocre and frustrating parts. The initial buildup was ok. There wasn’t much to do, some of the switches were hard to find, but after a while it all worked out. The atmosphere is the best part of this map, and the length. Where the other maps were short this one was longer. Once the player got past the initial steps the game got much more interesting. There were some weird parts where everything goes black and I couldn’t see anything, and it was awful (I almost thought it was broken or some weird ‘non ending’ until I got through them). Once you got past those weird ‘atmospheric sections’ the map got much better. The ending of them map is what fell flat for me. I kept thinking this is getting so good, this is getting so good, and then it was over. To me there was no finale, but overall it was a solid map, but nothing to write home about.
Crawl Space:
A very interesting entry and definitely worth a play through, to me it did not meet the goal of scaring the player. The player plays as an antlion grub trying to get through its metamorphosis. The grub encounters entomophobic humans among other obstacles to achieve their journey. I really like the map, and it did a wonderful job with its mechanics, but to me its fear factor was not on par with the other Halloweenville entries.
—
Overall the maps were okay, I was disappointed that there were not any maps that wowed me, but with the short notice I am certain most of the other mappers didn’t have time to clear their schedules to compete properly, as I know I didn’t. Halloweenville 3 is definitely worth a play through as long as you aren’t expecting anything too terrifying.
Manually
Medium
1 Hour, 40 Minutes
I thought the short amount of time that everybody was given affected the quality of the entries. My notes for each are as follows:
Ominous Prescence
A decent map with a nice setting. No real frights or even an ending though
There’s No One Around And Your Phone Is Dead
Short but enjoyable. I thought the traps before you get to the house were a nice touch. Unfortunately loading saved games didn’t work in this map. That’s not critical as the map is pretty small anyway.
Shadow Walker
There was some nice work in the design here. My favorite part was the pumpkin soda vending machine! The navigation was done well too.
Wendigo
An awesome entry. There was some really good design and use of sound effects. You have to navigate through a lot of different areas but it stayed interesting throughout. The water section at the end is pretty tough though but you can make it if you keep trying.
Crawl Space
This map had an interesting mechanic but the lack of the ability to load a save ruined it for me. I died twice and gave up after that.
I appreciate everybody’s efforts but I feel if they had a few more weeks the entries might have been more polished (except for Wendigo which was great)
Manually
Easy
1 Hour
I guess I have to clear up several things about Crawlspace.
[SPOILERS BEGIN HERE AND GO ON FOR THE ENTIRETY OF THE POST]
First of all, I saw HVT announcement way too late to go with traditional-length map. I was about to pass the fleeting opportunity, but the discussion on the page with all the people claiming that there’s no originality to be found in HL2 horror maps sparked some spiteful creativity within me. And so I was set up with a theme and direction: make original map, in HL2 universe. In less than 5 days, as I had to account for testing time.
The HL2-universe oriented horror theme implied no mysterious and downright unnatural happenings(as opposed to almost every other entry), so creepy whispers, visages and ghosts were straight out. But the regular enemies aren’t even scary to regular players, let alone veteran HL2 players (let’s be honest here, it takes AT LEAST jumpscare to get to the veteran players).
So I decided to take friendlies of the game and turn the tables completely, changing them not even into a formidable foe (Enemy rebels can really dish out punishment) – but something you can’t fight nor reason with. You’re essentially a bug to squash to them, and little else. Being an antlion grub, you’re devoid of any protection and you have to rely on your wits to stay alive.
Sadly I had to cut a lot of ideas and enemy characters on the go, as five days is really a very tight timeframe. For example, some of cut drafts involved a sort of dilapidated two-story cottage house area. There were plans of puzzles involving letting zombies in to distract rebels to pass behind the them during the ensuing ruckus safely. I had to fuse several characters and their related moments in one, like there was supposed to be a moment where female medic rebel sees/hears you and starts perforating dry-wall you’re hiding behind with AR2 madly (That MouseHunt nailgun scene, anyone?). But time was short and so all the gun-wielding was delegated to the Aaron character (that trigger-happy rebel with shotgun sitting in the corner on watch duty).
Plus, not being able to save really raised the stakes and every new danger was mounting on the player. I’m sure, had I somehow magically conjured more time and gone with twice the length, the map would’ve been more frustrating than enjoyable.
None of the above, actually. I used undocumented and barely-documented features of the game, and I paid very high price for that. The map in itself is a towering collection of ‘dirty hacks’ made in order to allow main gimmick of the map to work. Needless to say, a lot of bugs remain, some of them I’m unable to fix. And the grub gimmick itself is a jigsaw patchwork of game features used in unexpected ways.
After what I’ve done to the entities in the map, game really freaks out on loading. It can push you down and stick you in the floor, betatesters reported getting instantly killed, the crawling sounds suddenly no longer worked.
The kicker here is that I went all-out on these bugs, and it’s possible to load saved game, and my ‘safety net’ measures will unstick you with about 50% success ratio, though crawling sounds will still be broken, not really sure if anything can be done about that.
So if you really want to complete the map with saving and loading, you can, but it can and will break half of the time. The map is really short, by the way, so it’s rather easy to complete it in one go once you get hang of the stealth mechanics.
So the map came out very short and largely experimental. I picked slightly different sources for horror, too, but alas, the map is too short to let that really seep in.
Well, if that was done in 5 days, and being one of the most original HL2 mods released in the last few years, why not take some more days to make a better stand alone version of it?
Think about it, would be interesting:
Hey, Krassell! I really enjoyed Crawlspace. Would it be possible to add you on Steam to chat about it? I’ve got a few questions.
Okay, not really much to say.
Respect for the work on all maps, because I didn’t learn to map.
Wendigo was awesome, but the rest was really boring.
I am a little bit disappointed.
I would like to see an Xmas-Ville, with bad scenarios and a happy end where the HL² protagonists celebrate a happy Xmas after beating the combine down….from now on, so the mappers have enough time to give us a shitload and ready maps…..what do you think?
Xmas-Ville isn’t a bad idea, although for some reason for a moment there I was picturing something like the Star Wars Holiday Special but with Half-LIfe characters. It would be really interesting to see what creative ideas mappers would come up with.
Not to take the joy out of the season, but a WinterVille might be fun as well since not many maps make use of a frozen environment. It would be cool to see some mappers make The Thing inspired horror maps like Black Snow while others make arctic Combine bases or their own interpretation of the rebels’ arctic base from Episode 1.
After that point, why not make an Episode 3 ville? Each map could start and end with a similar mechanic (maybe a teleporter that strips you of your weapons) and tell a self-contained story that contributes to the narrative. Then they could be ordered from easiest to hardest.
I think Shadow Walker had two things that successfully created tension:
It forced you to explore the space at the end. With these sort of maps the player is always nervous when they enter a new space. This allowed them to get comfortable so the reveal of the threat has more impact.
The sliding door mechanic at first looks like a way to defend yourself. When you realise it won’t help it’s very unsettling.
Yes, I think you are right. That door mechanic was promising but then once you realise it’s not going to work, you have to find another way.
When will the playthrough be ready????
I have justed embedded it, sorry for the delay.
The playthrough video is unlisted on YouTube. Is it supposed to be that way?
Overall it was an OK competition, but after playing it I have the feeling this is a perfect Play It Later.
So lets see entries one by one:
Sorry but I didn’t like this one. I have said many times HL2 modifications aren’t scary at all unless the designer is very creative within the limits of the game. And this entry just stick to the very classic “scary” HL2 elements and that’s it zombies that are not scary at all anymore.
Sorry, but this was horrible. And I don’t know what the heck Shia Lebouf has to be related to the map anyway, maybe the inspiration of some movie?? I don’t know but it was just like a very short map and that stupid guy running at you kills you instantaneously so yeah that’s all and is dire.
I really like this one, but for me is the 3rd place of the comp. It actually scared me a little and I consider the concept was very original and fresh. The feeling of that burnt creepy guy chasing you was just scary enough.
It was really nice and challenging probably the best map in the comp. though the last entry just steal my heart. I hope this to win, as its elements are scary, fun to play and with a very dark scary environment all the way.
I just absolutely loved the concept. Many people may think this was a bad entry because you have to play it in one go, old style not saves, but I really like the concept of being an ant-lion grub that finally turns into an ant lion and take justice on her own hands… haha 🙂 That was a cool ending, although i feel this entry as a bonus map, because it didn’t feel precisely scary. As I said just steal my heart.
Using Gauge
Medium
1 Hour
Playing this map made me feel quite nostalgic because it reminded me of all the “horror maps” for Half-Life 2 or Garry’s Mod.
Ominous Presence follows most of the cliches associated with that “genre”: hospital setting, player waking up in an empty room with no weapons and/or HEV Suit, spooky noises the sources of which are unknown and so on. I’m kinda surprised it doesn’t have the common overuse of the Poison Zombie’s breathing or Stalkers appearing and disappearing with a scream in every door frame.
The level design doesn’t feature anything special and pretty average. The real problems with the map start as soon as you get the HEV Suit. Right next to you lie a crowbar, a pistol with only one magazine and three supply crates full of batteries. At that moment I thought to myself: “Looks like the ‘horror’ part goes out of the window.” since the player is given so much suit energy. But as it turns out there’s nothing to fight whatsoever.
Right in the next room there’s a zombie that throws a barrel at you (which, to be honest, I kinda liked) and you have basically three options: to waste your ammo shooting at him with a pistol, kill him with a crowbar or throw a flare that conveniently lies next to the door. Classic Zombies are the weakest enemies in the game and it’s very rare to see people using them “correctly”. That moment would’ve played better if the player didn’t have any weapons and was forced to use the environment and their head. The same room has a “weird” gas canister that doesn’t move.
After that you waste your entire magazine (if you didn’t waste it earlier) on one Fast Zombie and go down the stairs where a shotgun, an SMG and a whole lot of ammunition is waiting for you. Everyone had probably thought that the “shooting gallery” starts here but as it turns out there are only a bunch of zombies outside and most of them are standing around an explosive barrel. You run through them (no real reason to waste bullets on them) and… that’s it. The map ends there. So, what was the point of giving the player all these weapons?
Overall, a really weak entry.
There isn’t much to really say about this entry.
The visuals are pretty good: these lights in the bushes look really nice. But in terms of gameplay there’s nothing to do. You just go from the beginning of the map to it’s end and kill one enemy. Only playing for the second time I noticed that there are bear traps on the ground and some guy running around.
Can’t really criticize this map too much since it’s just a joke and criticizing a joke map would be the same thing as criticizing a background map. Probably not everyone will get it and those who will probably won’t find it very funny or worthy of their time.
The only map that features an actually creepy enemy. The problem is that to get to that enemy you have to go through big empty spaces with really not much to do. Except for one really simple puzzle (I don’t count all the “take the thing and put it where it belongs” moments) where you have to put a box so the door won’t close and you could pass. After that you walk through more empty corridors and finally arrive at the place that tells you with all it’s look “Something bad is going to happen here.” At that moment I felt quite uneasy because all the doors that you can close made me think that that I’ll have to use them to get away from something. And after pressing a button I was “rewarded” with an actual danger that has a face and can kill you. Running away from him isn’t a very challenging task but yet terrifying enough. The concept of closing doors behind yourself only to find out that he can go through certain “warps” to get you is quite entertaining.
Too bad at that moment the map ends. It would be really nice to see more.
Overall, a really short experience full of emptiness with a nice finale.
Many will probably call this one the best of the bunch because it does pretty much everything “right”. The map looks gorgeous, sounds right and delivers genuinely creepy atmosphere.
The one problem with this entry is that it doesn’t actually have any real danger. Nothing will attack you. Which is fine but only if the player does not realize this. But I personally realized this pretty early. After pushing two levers and going to the third one I noticed that the door to the elevator has too many wooden planks on it. Most of the mappers try not to put lots of them because if the enemy will go after the player, they can just break the lower planks, crawl under them and the enemy won’t be able to pass. At first I thought “Nah, this probably isn’t the case.” because, let’s be honest, these caves are terrifying, but as it later turned out, I was right. In my opinion it would be really great if the author would make a moment similar to the previous entry – where you have to run away from something.
The only other complains I have is the needless introduction – no real reason to show us all these images because they don’t tell us where our goal is anyway and there’s no real way to get lost (and my personal nemesis, the “env_projectedtexture” in the garage, but that complain may be completely ignored since the only reason I hate it is because I’m playing on a low-end PC).
A really original idea, I’ll give the author that. Too bad it’s not very scary which is kinda the point of the HalloweenVille. Nonetheless, it’s a short, fun and quite good-looking experience (if you ignore the low-resolution textures – it’s not the author’s fault). The only issue I have with this map is the really annoying sound effect the player makes when crawling and the crawling itself feels really off.
I would really love to see this map turn into a full-length modification where you start off playing as a grub and later play as a grown antlion or something like that. Half-Life 2: Antlion Edition, eh?
Manually
Medium
1 Hour
I never expected to see a HalloweenVille 3, but still, this is a good series of maps. Most of them even capture the Halloween feeling really well, but some others are just dire. Let’s start with:
This was an average map. The mapping is overly simple, with basic lighting and not a lot of variety. The beginning was kind of cool, but other than that, there’s aren’t that many scary moments (and yes, you can do horror without jumscares). The combat is just zombies and headcrabs. Overall, this is an okay map, but definitely not winner-worthy.
Well, it’s a joke map. What do you expect? The mapping is bad, with only some average lighting being fun to look at. The guy running to chase you isn’t that terrifying and the whole map is just 5 minutes short. There’s no combat, no variety and no fun. Just don’t play this.
This map on the other hand is really good. The mapping is much better and the concept of being chased by that crowbar guy was really creepy. It even reminded me of Alien at some point. The atmosphere is creepy, the idea is fresh and the execution is really good. Definitely try this map out!
Holy s***, this is probably the scariest map of any HalloweenVille ever. I’m serious. The atmosphere is just so chilling and dark, which is made all better with the incredible use of sound effects. The gameplay may seem boring at first, but trust me, the more you play it, the more frightening it gets. Not to mention, the mapping is superb, featuring great lighting and nice ambience. This is hands down the winner for me and you should definitely play it.
And last but not least…
This map is just as good, but for other reasons. The concept of playing as an antlion grub is really weird, and I didn’t know what to make of it at the start, but it turned out to be really clever. The mapping is good and it’s appropriate for its concept. Other than that, there’s not that much to say. If you like the concept, then try it out. It’s a great attempt at creating something new.
Final verdict; Great comp, (mostly) great and creative maps and most importantly, maps that definitely capture the Halloween-Horror feeling really well. Try it out!
Ominous Presence
Complete lack of interesting visuals but the starkness of this sets the scene well. I liked this but not so much the way all the baddies were placed. Not really scary but I still enjoyed it. Pretty good short map overall.
The Is No One Around And Your Phone Is Dead
Sorry. Really am…. but I just didn’t “get this” at all.
Shadow Walker
I liked this one. Setup really well and the way navigation works was well thought out. I’m not so sure I was creeped out but that guy was trying his best. lol. Nice one this.
Wendigo
This is like playing in a movie. The atmosphere was terrific and I enjoyed more or less everything and I can only imagine what it might be like with some zombies! And a shotgun…
Crawl Space
I thought that this could be promising when i first began playing but I got a little bored after a while. The narrow field of view was interesting and just playing as an Antlion was pretty cool. I dunno, it was a good idea but it didn’t work well in the end for me.
Manually
Medium
1 Hour
CrawlSpace —————–
I was asking my self when will someone use !player SetScale [number] command well…. there it is used in crawlspace.
Wendigo —————–
Gave me old horror movie vibes.I enjoyed it a lot and its also scared me ^^.
Shadowwalker —————–
Nice SCP:106 referance 😀 ı liked it.Very entertaining but easy to break the map(that didnt happened to me but ı can feel it xD).
There is noone around and your phone is dead —————–
Ummmmm.Weird ı guess ????.But it was extra extra short.
omnious Presence —————–
I liked the easteregg part where it teleports you to a hallway with jumpscare if you try to get out of the map :D.Overall it wasnt bad.I did enjoy it
Overall a reasonable turnout. Most were worth playing and while Wendigo is the clear standout, Shadow Walker and Crawlspace were clever concepts that could really be developed into more fleshed-out maps.
Decently done map. And yes it thankfully breaks the trope of overwhelming darkness. It did feel tense since there were long periods of relative quiet as you’re figuring out the puzzles. But then that tension is broken when you stumble on the shotgun and start facing zombies. The tension building was well done, but the payoff was missing and the maps ends disappointingly suddenly.
Yeah I didn’t really like this map. It’s basically a linear chase through the forest (but nothing like the forest in HalloweenVille’s Missing Person) and then a crowbar fight in a tiny house. Doesn’t really build tension or excitement.
This is a chase done right. Nice buildup (even though the walk through is linear) and a nice payoff in the tense battle with the walker. It perhaps could have been better to announce the walker’s arrival somehow, I didn’t even know what got me the first time I played, and I saw how disappointed Dolmo was in his video when he ran obliviously through the final area and suddenly killed one guy and the map ends. He missed much of the tension. But in all, a strong tense map.
This one was a superb example of tension & horror done well. Likely the best HalloweenVille map I’ve played. I love how the author toys with the player even from the early sections, where the wendigo appears for a moment here and there (it of course gets more obvious later on). But the buildup is fantastic. Yes, ultimately there isn’t an enemy that can hurt the player but the player’s imagination is allowed to run, and in a game with quicksave the threat of death isn’t really all that serious. Nicely executed, definitely a gem.
A nifty proof-of-concept map that would be great to see developed some day. The tension is created by being the weakest thing in the game. It wasn’t scary per se of course, but still clever.
Manually
Medium
1 Hour
They look great. Not exactly fun to play with the exception of Crawlspace which was an interesting view of things.
I had some minor problems with this map. Mainly I wasn’t sure if I was in a hospital, or a prison. Why are the rooms so barren? The ending was very abrupt too.
Usage of space and world brushes: 4/10
I’ll give the creator some credit, I did feel like some effort was put into making this map, and I didn’t get too lost. That’s where my problems start. It’s too simple and barren. More details are needed to really tell the story of where Gordon is.
Visuals 2/10
It’s nothing amazing. Bare bone visuals and props.
Gameplay: 5/10
The gameplay is the best part here. I’m not sure why there are zombies, but at least I have weapons to defend myself. I assumed it was a prison because why would there be weapons in a hospital?
Final Score: 11/30 – 36%
Final Comments: Took me about 4.5 minutes. Needs a lot of work.
Maybe I’m not in on the joke, or maybe I missed something while playing the map, but I have no idea what is going on in this map. The environment is ok, but that’s all. I have to google another name I guess since I have no idea Who the enemy was. Edit: I guess he’s an actor. I guess I need to watch more movies or something to understand the reference.
Usage of space and world brushes: 2/10
The world is very small and full of invisible walls.
Visuals 2/10
You’re in a gmod forest in 2010 apparently.
Gameplay: 0/10
I don’t even know where to begin, so I will keep it short. I got really confused on my first few deaths. Then I decided to just walk away from my companion instead of waiting for them. They somehow beat me to the house. Then started to kill me again. What?
Final Score: 4/30 – 36%
Final Comments: Took me about 4.5 minutes. Needs a lot of work.
I accidentally softlocked myself and broke the map the first time I played it. I was messing around with the buttons and locked myself out of the key room. The second time I played this map I accidentally locked the “shadow walker” in the room with me so I just used the vent to escape. Didn’t realize I needed to kill it until I decided just to shoot at it. It immediately died and the map was over. There was nothing scary except the fact that I thought I was going to have to replay it again.
Usage of space and world brushes: 5/10
It looks like some kind of research facility. Really confusing layout. Random dead end doors and very boxy rooms.
Visuals 2/10
It’s nothing crazy. Maybe for when it was first released it was.
Gameplay: 0/10
I don’t even know where to begin, so I will keep it short. I’m not sure what “Lake Superior Department of Energy” has to do with horror research. Like I said. I didn’t die once and softlocked myself a few times. Game over was confusing.
Final Score: 7/30 – 23%
Final Comments: Took me about 14 minutes. Needs a lot of work.
This is one of the best maps I’ve played so far. Far better than the others.
Usage of space and world brushes: 10/10
Amazing usage of space and world brushes. I was very impressed. Not sure why others were not at this level of design. They all had the same time right?
Visuals 10/10
Amazing and solid visuals. I was definitely feeling the vibe this map was trying to convey. The lighting, the particles, prop placement. So good.
Gameplay: 10/10
Stunning gameplay. It’s not the JPEG jumpscare. It uses stingers and corner-of-the-eye scares to really bring the mood to a level that would scare the average player.
Final Score: 30/30 – 100%
Final Comments: Took me about 25 minutes. Keep up the amazing work!
This is one of the best maps I’ve played so far. Far better than the others.
Usage of space and world brushes: 10/10
Amazing usage of space and world brushes. I was very impressed. Not sure why others were not at this level of design. They all had the same time right?
Visuals 10/10
Amazing and solid visuals. I was definitely feeling the vibe this map was trying to convey. The lighting, the particles, prop placement. So good.
Gameplay: 10/10
Stunning gameplay. I’ve always wanted to play as something other than a human being. I can’t wait to see what you do next.
Final Score: 30/30 – 100%
Final Comments: Took me about 8 minutes. Keep up the amazing work!
Manually
Medium
53 Minutes
Playtime: 10 mins
Escape an prison or insane asylum(?) p.s. if you’re stuck in the first room remember to look up 😉
Playtime: 6 mins
A funny game version of an old meme about Shia Leboeuf. Avoid the male npc evil guy.
Playtime: 10 mins
You show up late for work at a research facility and something is going on! Nice looking map and it even has a boss fight. well done
Playtime: 20 mins
A solid very atmospheric experience and some nice puzzles. Very good tension too that keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time
Playtime: 10 mins
POV you are a bug and turns out these guys really hate bugs. cool stealth mechanics as a bug
A pretty solid collection of maps imo. My favourite is most likely either Wendigo for it’s atmosphere, or Crawlspace for being a unique idea.