“You play as a anonymous, lone rebel, woken up by the combine’s threatening movement through the forest, with no memory whatsoever of how you got there.
You’ll go through the forest and find your way to City 17, and drive through to the other side of the City to find a way to get to The White Forest base, with or without help.
In this mod you will explore and traverse many environments and locations, including (and still might change in development) : White Forest, City 17, and possibly The Coast.
This mod takes place not too long after Freeman has just been taken out of stasis.”
- Title: Unforeseen Circumstances: Episode 1
- Filename: hl2-ep2-sp-unforeseen-circumstances-ep1-v1
- Size : 25.40MB
- Author: Frze512
- Date Released: 12 June 2018
“Before any confusion, I want to make this as clear as I can : THIS IS MY FIRST MOD, and developed by, JUST ME! Thank you.”
Download to your HDD [25.40MB]
You can still use it with Gauge once you have downloaded it.
If you require more help, please visit the Technical Help page.
- Copy the UnforeseenCircumstancesEp1 folder into your …\Steam\SteamApps\SourceMods\ folder.
- Start or restart Steam
- Unforeseen Circumstances: Episode 1 should now be listed in your Library tab.
Here is my blind playthrough.
Coming Soon.
WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.
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1,026Overall
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0Today
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6Last 7 days
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74365 days
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 10 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 0 Hours, 51 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 20 Mins by Roy
Longest: 1 Hours, 20 Mins by PlanetPhillip
Total Time Played: 8 Hours, 29 Mins
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Quite enjoying this up to the point when you use the ladder to climb away from the helicopter. After getting to the top of the ladder and jumping off there is an explosion noise behind you after which the game crashes out to the Steam interface. Tried it many times in different ways but still happens.
Same happened to me. Check my playthrough and see if it helps you. i think it was related to the direction I was looking.
Tried it again multiple times the way you did Phillip. Didn’t seem to make any difference which way I looked or moved. Still crashing out.
Bad Luck. There’s only a helicopter battle after that anyway and it wasn’t much fun.
Sorry for the late reply.. Okay, REALLY late reply. But I only found out about this from people reporting the problem, the thing is I never encountered the crashes during play testing and I still don’t, and I’m still not entirely orientated with the editor so its hard to find the problem without experiencing it myself. Apologies nonetheless.
I have to admit that I am writing this review quite a while after actually playing the mod. Ideally, this should be done either immediately after playing or very soon after. I could just watch my blind playthrough but I am sorry I don’t have time.
What I will say is more related to the general feeling I was left with rather than specific moments, although I do remember some.
First off, this is a mod of varying quality. It’s clear, at least to me, that some sections were made at different times by the creator. Now, obviously all maps have that but there is not a consistent level in this one. This is one of the reasons why modders who make something should release smaller things first.
What also struck me was the inconsistency of reality. For me, that’s really important in a single player release. If an area doesn’t feel real then I find minor issues with it. Things that I might ignore in other levels. A clear area is the tower section with the stupidly hard jumping sections and kill player clips, or whatever they are called.
I respect the right of all creators to create what they want and enjoy but when you release something you need to realise that other people will play it. Market your jumping maps for people who enjoy jumping maps, Don’t include something so out of place for a mass market release.
The final area was badly balanced, but looked really good, much much better than anything before it, if I remember correctly. It also crashed on me a number of times.
All in all, this was too large a release for a first release. It lacked consistency and a coherent flow and storyline. You should probably play it but be prepared for a slightly frustrating experience.
Manually
Easy
1 Hour, 20 Minutes
How do you SPOILER: get out of the room with the key
jump out the front window (take the key with you) back into the square you came from and use the key to unlock the door upstairs
I was vary when I read that this was the mapper’s first release, but I was somewhat optimistic that it couldn’t be that bad…. wrong. I took notes while playing thru it, as I usually do.
The first thing and first mistake I noticed basically set the mood for the rest of the mod: the gravity gun was placed in such a location that i would’ve been easy to not find it and get stuck right at the start. One of the most important rules of map design imo is to never plac crucial items in a way that players can avoid picking them up and miss them later on, and that rule is violated A LOT on this release.
It doesn’t get much better afterwards. Cops hide out behind corners, forcing me to CQC a metrocop with only a crowbar, just to encounter smg1-yielding Combine infantry right after. That doesn’t make any sense, neither plot-wise nor gameplay-wise, and neither does the rest of the mod. What follows for the next few minutes is a mix of horrible displacements, even worse lighting, a map change every few metres (buddy ep2 can fit half of White Forest into one map, let alone your handful of hallways). When one looks back after a map change, there’s only a blidning white light instead of looking back on where one came from – very amateurish.
The architecture is hardly deserving of the name, consisting but of bare cubes and shapes. The player is pointlessly stripped of his weapons, teleported someplace else (apparently, that’s easier than just building the map in a way that lets the player fall down a hole) and presented a dozen headcrabs. It took me a few deaths to find out that there was a crowbar hidden on a shelf – again, easy to miss. After that, several unnecessary deaths took place until I completed the bollocks jump puzzle with as much as 5hp left, only to get shot into bits by combine. For some reason, they ignored me if I was more than a few metres away – block line of sight textures much?
The player’s guns are repeatedly taken from him and given back, for no apparent reason, to the point where one finds the ar2 and the crossbow right after another…. BS.
The mod is a mess overall. The author apparently just learned how to do simple geometry and then spammed as many enemies and items as possible into their “maps”, completely ignoring canon, gameplay or any other aspects which leads to situations as bizarre as antlions in the sewers, Nova Prospekt soldiers in City 17 and fast zombies in the canals. I died far too often and was close to quitting even more often. The architecture seems unrealistic, fulfils no purpose other than serving as the backdrop for the unrelenting mass slaughter of zombies and headcrabs as well as the player’s several deaths. The puzzles are weird and presented without explanation (I had to watch Phillip’s playthrough (nice voice mate, btw) to figure out the key one).
There were too many amateurish mistakes, such as the train stopping in a way that I was instantly killed by a sniper behind my back, or falling down into another map to find there’s an antlion – again behind my back, impossible to see beforehand and engage accordingly. Then there’s the sniper, who simply shot me when I was RIGHT under him, aiming his beam 90° downwards. The mapper apparently loves poison headcrabs, as they hide out everywhere, no matter how little health the player has left (around 30HP, most of the time).
The canal is the worst part. I got spammed with not only a chopper, but every kind of zombie – ALL AT ONCE. I had to enable godmode to survive at all and once again consult Phillip’s video to understand the ladder. The game crashed afterwards (it seems I’m not the only one to experience that?) and I decided to give up. I wasted an hour on this, that’s more than enough.
I understand this sounds more than a little harsh, and I hope the author takes some time to read up on basic rules or concepts of map design and tries to uderstand that a map has to make some sense, too (such as the inside of a building not being bigger than the outside (unless it’s the TARDIS) or architecture at least pretending to have a use besides being a map).
Manually
Medium
1 Hour
I had problems finding the gravity gun.
The next was hl2.exe freezing during the first battle. Maybe an issue with my setup, I don’t know.
I gave up after 20 minutes.
Thanks for map #2 of #50. I am enjoying trying new maps.
Thanks.
Manually
Medium
20 Minutes
Surely we wouldn’t kick off the Sourcey Days of Summer the same way we kicked off the 100 Summer Days of Nostalgia right? Right? (OK fair enough it actually kicked off with NostalgiaVille).
But this one is dire, I’m sorry. Maybe it’s a first attempt but that’s why you playtest, get feedback, practice, and polish before a release.
The author takes the kitchen sink approach and throws just about everything into this pack. They are clearly fans of zombies because the maps are chock full of them – and unforgivably you’re put in a tight dark room with 2 poison zombies and a handful of other types.
The combat is not fun, and often just a rush of enemies. The worst offender is probably the defend sequence before you get on the train, there’s no time to take a breath and it’s really just a quicksave fest. Throw in a horrible interminable vertical jumping puzzle and you have one of the worst packs I’ve played for Source (but that’s not saying a lot).
There are hints of clever ideas here and there. I think the ladder puzzle near the end would have been a clever setup – if there weren’t a horde of zombies to deal with, in addition to the chopper above. It’s just too much.
Avoid this.
Manually
Medium
44 Minutes
This mod certainly has a lot of rough edges, which is to be expected for a first release. It could have used a little beta testing. I found the farther along I got the less polished it became. The following items could use some work:
– The antlion grubs don’t make a sound when you squish them. I don’t know if that was intentional or a bug
– There is no train door and no safe walkway up to the train either. Major safety hazard for the poor workforce!
– A lot of the maps have a black spot that you walk to and only after the next map loads can you see what it is
– The map transition spots are too close together. By that I mean if you take one step backwards you load the old map again
– I found the room where you fall in frustrating, because I thought I was supposed to stack the furniture high enough to climb out but the gravity gun couldn’t pick the pieces up.
– It’s not clear when you are supposed to go back on the train because you can’t see why it stopped, just a black hole in front of it.
I didn’t experience the train crash as I just ran over the ladder as fast as possible. So if you have some patience and nothing else to play, why not try it and leave the author some feedback? It’s not like HL3 is coming out soon!
Manually
Easy
40 Minutes
Like you’ve already seen here, this mod isn’t really good.
I think that some sections are better than others, the beginning being the most enjoyable one – but that’s not really saying much – and the absolute worst being the canal.
Apart from some issues which we can consider “passable”, being the author’s first map and all, like the mediocre and often boxy mapping to the fact that you can see when enemies spawn in front of you, some other problems were very serious. Some of these I haven’t seen in other first maps and if the author really wants to get into mapping, he should really consider them.
First, there seems to be no design here. Not only are there no connections between the themes of the maps, but the maps themselves seem to NOT be thought out, and that they were done in a hurry.
I’ve said this in previous maps too. DON’T add platforming segments in single-player mods or maps, except if that’s their purpose, like in Kreedz Climbing or something. I don’t have a problem with them, but others do and it can be annoying.
Lastly, try to make the combat a bit toned down. There could be 10-15 enemies attacking you at once sometimes, and that’s not a good sign.
Overall, I would normally add an AI rating, but I think I’m gonna give this mapper a second chance. I honestly think he should get to know Hammer’s features better, so he can make Episode 2 much better.
P.S.: The mod crashes when I climb the ladder you pick up in the canals.
Seems like the crash after climbing the ladder is fairly widespread. Would be good to hear from the author on that one. Re the mass of zombies, head crabs etc. in the toxic wasteland section, the simplest way to even the odds is to run straight for the pipe with the ladder in it and hide inside. From there you can gradually pick off most, if not all, of the enemies before making a run for the wall with the ladder.
Well, that’s pretty much exacty what I did. I still don’t think it’s a good idea to have a helicopter chasing you, seeing that you don’t have a vehicle or something to defend yourself.
Quite agree. It would have been better if the helicopter had appeared as you reached the top of the ladder. As long as it didn’t then crash out!
After watching Philips painfull attempt at this, I almost didn’t bother, it looked dire. But then I thought, what if I cheated and just had fun with it, so, God mode on, the occaisional No Clip and impulsing away…I did just that…great fun zooming 10 metres above zombie hoards, dropping grenades and blasting away, not giving a hoot about what’s up above me…..but as a playable set of maps in the normal sense, it’s almost impossible, where’s the fun in that.
Manually
Medium
1 Hour
Linux: I set all files to lowercase and copied the client.so and the server.so in the bin folder.
After that it run without problems. Better: No crashes under Linux 😀
I had to set the game to god mode in the last section and i could not climb the ladder because it was still to high and no box etc. that i hadnt broken before…
This is bad, indescribably bad. The combat is poorly balanced and the platforming is gut-ripping hard.
The first encounter of the Soldiers already gave me an impression of how bad it is, you have a pistol, the Gravity Gun, and the crowbar. There were too many Combines to be taken care of with your pistol.
The defence sequence is just spamming Soldiers, there’s no thought put into this one. And also there’s actually a gap wide enough between the platform and the train for you to fall down and die.
What is this?
Manually
Medium
30 Minutes
Unforeseen Circumstances: Episode 1
I liked the start which was quite dramatic and also fun killing the headcrabs. I loved the atmosphere but it leads into a strange scene where I’ve little to fight off the soldiers. In the end, I ran by ’em and through the cave! The next stage seems to be more of the same as I can see a soldier not moving and an odd way to disable the forcefield…
Hey over here… lol
Oh dear, I’ve lost all my weapons and I only just got ’em too! Very odd… The fast spiders are nothing but annoying and I really would have liked a health pack or two along with that crowbar.
Wow, I absolutely HATED everything that followed. It probably started off as a nice idea to challenge the player but it just didn’t work and is complete overkill. Frustrating and badly designed for much of it and it also this leads on to the most pointless scene ever. This fight didn’t make much sense at all and then we’re heading back down again! Once again this leads to another scene with little HL2 logic… And I won’t even mention how wrong the battle played out. Yikes!!
The train leads to an open area where I was instantly shot by the sniper before realising what was going on. Anyhow, these parts are quite good in comparison to everything so far. However, things are quite scarce here and then dropping down into that overly DARK room stuffed full of Hell’s worst is a complete overkill. I see a key for that locked door but the only way there is an awkward jump through the window. This follows with another awkward jump, and a rather unrealistic scene with a couple of dump soldiers? Back on the train and that’s where this adventurer finishes because of the game black screening…
I really don’t know what to make of this. It’s obvious the mapper has some great ideas but they’re badly executed and often totally OTT and unrealistic for the HL2 universe. It feels pretty much a mishmash of ideas which don’t come together too well so I hope the developer keeps on trying because there’s much to learn and there is promise (?) (those starting scenes and part of the building are not too umm bad). As it is right now, I’d say don’t bother.
Well, what can I say about this one? Maybe that this is the classic example of a source mod in relatively “early days” posterior to the Ep2 Release.
This has some interesting combat points, and I guess the best part is the challenge in the canale against the Helicopter, but that’s it. The rest of the mod is very boxy, blocky, predictable, repetitive, and at some parts very, very hard, unfairly hard.
This reminded me of that many HL1 badly done maps, also in the very first days of modding and mapping back there like between 1999 and 2001.
So yeah, it’s interesting to play early source mod releases, but this is very far, far away to be good. Sorry.
Unforeseen Circumstances: Episode 1. It goes from one place to another, from one style to the other, you get the point.
The mod starts off pretty nice with a good looking environment, until you get to the combat. There is one Metrocop. Once you turn the corner, there are multiple Soldiers waiting for you. Why? I only have a pistol and a crowbar and one piece of cover to hide behind, and you want me to fight 5 Soldiers at once?
After that fight you will notice another flaw in this mod: lazy level transitions. You can easily see where a level is ending. This is something you will see a lot, because for some reason this mod has WAY too many loading screens.
After a really small fight you see some rebels and the ground breaks beneath you and you fall down into a sewer-type thing. For some reason all your weapons are gone even though they should have fallen down with you.
Anyway, you continue in a room with way too many fast headcrabs, and then begins one of my least favorite part of the mod; a parkour in a tower. One of the major complaints I have about it, is how it is not realistic in the slightest. A lot of wooden planks and platforms are in the walls like they were placed by people thinking “let’s place em like this in case some weirdo wants to jump on them”. Also, I thought we were in a sewer-industrial type of place? What is this all doing here? What is a table with a gun on it doing in here? Well, it seems you shouldn’t think too much playing this mod. The other major complaint I have about this part is the jumping itself. You can very easily fail a jump, so you rely on quicksaves.
After this part, you are on top of the building and it seems like it became night in the 5 minutes I was underground, and we are apparantly in a forest which does not look like the place we started in even though we moved about 50 metres away from the place we had fallen.
On this part of the mod I noticed two more things that, when you realise that they are there, will notice every single time you play this mod.
1. You can see almost every Combine Soldier spawn into the world
2. The creator of the mod forgot to disable idle sounds for the “asleep” zombies, so you can hear
them scream even though they are lying on the floor
After some other parts you get to a sewer part again and an antlion attacks you in the back.
After you press a button on a Combine Interface that is upside down, combat starts; and my God it’s bad. It’s again just a lot of quicksaving.
But, this can all be avoided if you wait in a corner where the Combine can’t see you. After I waited for a while the forcefield around a train went out and I wanted to step in, but I fell next to the train which killed me, because SOMEONE FORGOT TO PUT A SIMPLE PLAYERCLIP THERE!
I had to start the waiting over again. Sorry for the screaming, I just really don’t like this mod.
You ride the train to “the outskirts of city 17”, and there is a part with a sniper. When I walked in the house the sniper was in (the sniper was about 2 stories higher than the entrance), he hit me. Excuse me, but the sniper is using an actual gun, so if he wanted to get that angle he would have needed to stand upside down on the ceiling.
After a part where you are dropped into a room with WAY too many zombies, I was lost. I had to search up a walkthrough to progress. Apparantly there was a key on a couch which was so small I didn’t even notice it. You open a door with a key, get outside, press a button, and..? Had to search up a walkthrough again. After pressing this button you need to get in the train again. There is not a single indication that this button did something with the train. Some simple wires would’ve made things way more clear.
The next parts are actually better, sometimes to the point where I would consider them good.
These parts look good and are fun to play.
But then, suddenly, the mod takes a HUGE leap down again. Not the well-looking environment, but the fun. You need to go through a Water Hazard Chapter type environment with a Chopper shooting at you from above. There are also a lot of zombies. This could’ve been fun if it wasn’t for the sheer lack of cover to hide behind/under. You will get hit by the Chopper A LOT of times, one time he even shot me so many times he killed me in 4 seconds (with full health and about 60% suit power). I hated this part. Unfortunately, this was also the last part of this mod. Such a shame, because after the parts before this one I really started to enjoy this mod. But, it ends on a bad note.
I’m sorry but I did not like this mod. I gave it a “Think Twice” because of the parts I did like about it. If this is the creators first mod, I must say he/she/it has a lot of potential to make a very good mod. We’ll just have to see how the second episode will turn out.
Manually
Medium
1 Hour
Just played this mod and I was unsure if I would give this a ‘Think Twice’ or ‘Maybe’ and ultimately settled for the latter as there were some parts that I enjoyed, but the mod has a lot or rough edges.
The visuals are somewhat inconsistent in the sense that the start and end section of Unforeseen Circumstances look pretty good, but the rest of the mod does generally has a somewhat lower visual quality. It’s not a huge issue for me personally but I noticed it.
The gameplay overall is kinda rough. I’m a fan of maps/mods that start relatively serene and slowly pick up in difficulty. Unforeseen Circumstances however quickly literally bombards you with a swarm of headcrabs, followed by a surprisingly large amount of Combine soldiers while the player is poorly armed. And yes, the jumping section following the initial combat is ridiculous! Although I have to say I only died once in that section, so it wasn’t really a frustrating experience for me. The defend section near the train was badly designed, but I enjoyed it in a weird way as I had to throw grenades and fire SMG Alts in such a way that I took out at least 3 combine per shot/throw. However, despite enjoying this defend scene in some way I died 8 times or so and that is definitely a sign that this combat setup wasn’t good.
There’s a puzzle in the City 17 section that involves a tiny brush key that is very hard to spot. Now, I accidentely found it quickly but there’s a huge potential of people getting stuck there for a long time and possibly ragequitting!
The final canal section has a bit too much enemies coming from multiple sides and angles, but I guess I got lucky again and died only once in this section. But again, the difficulty spike is probably a bit much.
Overall, it seems this mod certainly has positive sides but is also a potential source of immense frustration. Be aware!
Manually
Medium
55 Minutes
Storyboard: the videogame
Manually
Medium
1 Hour