April 2018 – General Chat

No doubt, there’s a bunch of “Half-Life 3 Has Been Announced!”, “Exclusive Half-Life 3 Screenshots!”, “Valve announces Half-Life 3!” etc but we are all too wise for to fall for those.

In fact, some of you might even avoid the Internet all together in the hope of not being disappointed yet again.

Sometimes the timing of news releases can have us doubting but the reality is that not everybody pays attention to April Fool’s and therefore inadvertently add to the strange news stories released.

I might have something to announce today and unfortunately it has to be today, so no doubt you’ll question its timing.

Anyway, enough of that.

As I write this, I still have another few more days off and hope to do some behind-the-scenes work on the site, including getting the multi-tags feature working again. I’ll also trying to open J.A.C.K. and starting doing some mapping again.

That plus my monthly promise to finish Wolfenstein: The new Order!

What about you, what do you have planned?

1st April 2018 10 Comments

Dark Forest

for Half-Life 2: Episode Two

“It is sometime after the events of HL2:EP2 (where have we heard that one before!?)
An early morning mission sees Gordon assaulting a facility overrun by zombies.
The Combine are thin on the ground, they are forced to leave some strategically important assets undefended.
Rebel intelligence has identified one such location, a Combine dark energy reactor retrofitted inside an abandoned Soviet missile base.
A crack team of Rebel special forces was sent in but are assumed dead because we have not heard back from them since.
Be careful, there is only one viable way in and out.
You are to go in, find access to the reactor, thought to be on the lowest levels of the facility and find a way to destroy it.
Intelligence suggests that a series of beams keep the spheres stable, so disabling these should eventually lead to a core meltdown.
Once you have disrupted the reactor, make it back to the extraction point.
We are counting on you, Doctor Freeman.”

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Total Downloads: 1,06031st March 2018
14 Comments and 8 recommendations, most say "Maybe?"

Donation Drive 2018

You’ve seen the title and have guessed the purpose of this post.
I am asking for your money.

Running the site is not the issue really, I get money from my Patreon pledges each month and that covers the running costs and provides some of the prize fund for the challenges.

There are other costs, like games I buy for prizes etc, but nothing that is really a problem.

However, as the mapping challenges have become bigger, so have the prizes and with a combined prize fund of almost $1500 this year, I need to make this post.

The Crowbar Collective have provide most of the prize fund for the Mesa Cup and I can’t thank them enough for their support.

That still leaves the Lambda Cup to fund.

There are two options to donate. Firstly, you can use the PayPal Donation page and secondly you can donate via the button below.

Donate

If you do donate, thank you very much, it is much appreciated.

30th March 2018 7 Comments

March 2018 – General Chat

Spring will soon be here. I kinda like the rain and cold though because when I am at home most of the weekend on my PC, I feel less guilty than if it’s warm and sunny. I feel as though I have an excuse.

What about you?

Anyway, yes, let’s address the pink with green spots elephant in the room: I have only just posted the March chat (Wednesday 21st March 2018).

Shame on me for A: not doing ti and B: for not noticing until somebody emailed me.

What plans do you have for the final 9 days of March? Me? Well, I have some unpaid leave from the 29th until the second week of April, and I hope to do a thousand things but will be lucky to do 5.

21st March 2018 24 Comments

Gauge 2.7.2 Now Available

So sorry to all those who have had trouble recently trying to install directly into Gauge. This release fixes issues with the change from HTTP to HTTPS.

Gauge won’t ask you to update automatically, I still need to fix that, so, either download the update and do it manually or the full installer.

Visit the gauge homepage for full details and download links.

14th March 2018 6 Comments

The Beautiful Indoor Experiment

for Half-Life 2: Episode Two

For this Experimental Mapping Challenge, entrants had to make a map that most would consider beautiful.

Of course, beautiful is generally considered visual but in this case, the atmosphere was also important.

It was hoped that some would even try environmental story-telling.

The mod contains 7 official entries and 3 bonus entries.

This mod requires the Source SDK Base 2013 Singleplayer “Upcoming” beta branch activated.

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Total Downloads: 2,62010th March 2018
15 Comments and 9 recommendations with no significant bias

The Loop Complex

for Black Mesa

Here is the first mapping challenge in the Mesa Cup.

The release contains 5 entries.

For this challenge, entrants needed to create a map whose main layout is a loop: the player must return to where they started. As usual, it was the journey that counted.

For full details of the announcement, please see the original theme announcement.

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Total Downloads: 3,1113rd March 2018
27 Comments and 8 recommendations, most really enjoyed it!

The Lambda Cup 2018 – Challenge 2 – GravityGunVilleTwo

Hello and welcome to the Lambda Cup, a series of five HL2:Ep2 single player mapping challenges.

If you are new to my mapping challenges, please see the event’s homepage: THE LAMBDA CUP 2018 as well as the CALENDAR of the mapping challenges for the entire 2018.

Theme Details

Half-Life 2’s revolutionary weapon was undoubtedly the Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator. You can call it that if you really want to.

But to us it’s the Gravity Gun. A simple concept, executed perfectly in the game – and the perfect tool to show off the physics engine. We learned the basics in Black Mesa East, experimented with its lethality in Ravenholm, and used it from then on for exciting activities such as stacking crates, tossing barrels, shoving around poor headcrabs, and eventually making Combine soldiers into personal ragdolls.

We want you to create a map that features the Gravity Gun. In addition, besides the Gravity Gun, optionally the player may obtain and carry the crowbar and only one other weapon. Note that this restriction is on Gordon’s standard weapons – so objects like hopper mines and Magnusson Devices do not count as the other weapon and may be used freely.

This time there’s a twist: our latest research has developed a new function for the Gravity Gun. By finding and attaching a rare Stasis Crystal, the now-enhanced Gravity Gun has the added ability to freeze an object in space. Don’t worry, it’s not permanent – but the object will remain in stasis indefinitely until you use the Gravity Gun to move it again.

Use of the Stasis Crystal is optional in this challenge. Mappers can give players the classic Gravity Gun or the Super Gravity Gun – and both versions may be enhanced with the Stasis Crystal. We’d love to see what you can do with the Stasis Crystal, but the regular old Gravity Gun is fun too. Wow us!

So, to sum up:

  • feature the gravity gun
  • adding the new stasis crystal is optional
  • the player may also get the crowbar and one other weapon beyond the gravity gun
  • we’re really looking forward to playing with the grav gun in whatever kind of maps you can dream up and build!

Deadline

The deadline for submission is 11pm GMT Wednesday 28th March 2018

1st March 2018 16 Comments