Author’s Note: This is my final year project that I directed, designed and produced. Built using the Source engine (Half-Life 2: Episode 2). The game features professional voice actors and a fun, strange story. Features great action and challenging puzzles. “A new cult has started in a small town, offering to take its recruits to a new planet for a greater life. At the local Police Station new recruits Sam and Larry have been tasked with investigating. Once in they discover some strange experiments but must use this technology to get to its leader and arrest him!”
- Title: Alan’s Mod
- File Name: hl2-ep2-sp-alans-mod.7z
- Size : 19.45MB
- Author: Matthew Baxter
- Date Released: 11 May 2008
- Copy the Alans folder into your SourceMods folder.
- Restart or start Steam.
- Alan’s Mod should now be listed in your Library tab.
- Launch as you would other games.
Alans Video SD from Matthew Baxter on Vimeo.
Here is the solution to one of the puzzle that many players emailed me to say was broken. It’s a very quick production, and as such I ad libed the solution.
[MEDIA=70]
If you prefer other video providers you can try:
Click on the thumbnails below to open a 1024 pixel wide image.
WARNING: The screenshots may contain spoilers.
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Please note: These statistics are valid from December 2010
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1,134Overall
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0Today
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1Last 7 days
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9Last 30 days
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51365 days
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 2 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 0 Hours, 16 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 15 Mins by Daken50
Longest: 0 Hours, 16 Mins by JellyGal
Total Time Played: 0 Hours, 31 Mins
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I have to admit that at first I was not really impressed but as it went on I got more and more pleased. I didn’t like the voice acting, probably becasue I have a similar accent and it didn’t seem right to have Barney change voice.
Getting somebody to voice act can be hard enough but I felt that the author could have put him to better use. For explain, by explaining what to do with some of the puzzles.
It was great to see some new style puzzles but I got the feeling that the author built the weak story around the puzzles, which left it feeling a little unconnected.
It also could have done with a little more testing becasue I found myself stuck once when a small change in the design could have avoided it. Unless of course I missed something obvious!
I also felt there were too many doors that didn’t open and the corridors were another thing that simply seemed to joining the puzzles together rather than be a part of the layout/design.
The end was a little unfulfilling but there’s no doubt the author put a lot of work into the whole thing.
So far I have only mentioned the negatives and if I were followed a textbook appraisal I should have sandwich the bad with the good at beginning and end.
You should be asking yourself why I have given this mod a Play Iy Now! if I am only going to complain and point out what I think are negatives.
Well, becasue even with the negatives it’s a great mod and everybody should play it. I’m not a big fan of puzzles and prefer to run and shoot but sometimes we all need a change.
If the puzzles had been part of a shooting mod and woven more into the whole design I would have been happier.
Go play it now and enjoy something different for a change.
Will play soon just would like to say that I liked the new host u found for vids. this vimeo is fast and the video streamed without stuttering !! Gj.
Maybe Im too dumb, but that puzzle part doesn’t work here. I press e in screens and nothing happens. try to press WASD nothing happens. Well.. I couldn’t finish so I would say:
sorry for double post
The puzzles were interesting but broken, I understood very little of what was going on even though I finished it. For instance the puzzle with the falling gates, it made no sense logically.. it took a lot of tries before I realized the reason I was failing. Then the puzzle with moving the magnets on the monitor, I got stuck moving the magnet and no matter how many times I pressed E I couldn’t get out of it so I noclipped past that part.
I must give the author credit, university projects like these don’t get much time to test and polish, but I think the basic design behind a lot of the puzzles could be improved a lot.
Lets get down to the bad sides first
*One major puzzle (Involving TV screens and people) , totally broken. Had to noclip past it.
*Sudden / No ending
not only that, there seems to be a lot of audio and other things I never seen used EVER while playing. It’s a great start, good concept. If the author ever gets out of the class room, he should take a second look at this.. fix it up a bit, But until then it’s getting a “Think twice” (Think Twice by playing this mod, but don’t let it totally let you down.. it’s.. somewhat interesting.. for a class project and we seen our share of really great class project mods with HL2)
I agree that this is more a demonstration of “puzzles” than of regular HL2 gameplay, and as such, it warrants a different point of view. I was able to successfully figure out all the puzzles without requiring a noclip once. Granted, some of these puzzles are real head-scratchers.
The first real challenging one was the gates falling down that you have to stop to let Gordon sneak past — that one took me about a dozen tries to figure out on my own what to do (my 8-year-old daughter gave me the idea — “Daddy, hit the gates!” — glad genious runs downhill!). The second was the TV screen. Read the board there — once you realize there are five intersecting paths, and two balls, and knowing that the balls cause an electric shock if they come within a certain radius of citizens, it’s simply a matter of moving up to each monitor, and using your regular move buttons to move each ball, and “jump” to get out. Finally, the last real head-scratcher is the two rotating dynamos that you have to get going fast enough to cause a spark. I thought this was real genious, and I could see this in a real HL2 level.
I certainly don’t think this is the best mod we’ve seen, but the author has put real effort into taking the puzzle portion of HL2 to another level, and deserves kudos for that. I’d rate it about a 3.75 for effort.
Exactly what I hate in a map : no story, bugged puzzles and no perceptible solutions since the riddles themselves were elusive. I gave up at the ball game. What’s the fun in endlessly pushing the gates with the balls ? I tried map two, got stuck with the screens and decided that sleep was a major improvement to my situation. Felt like Bela Lugosi in the sunshine. “Night, guys.
oh, god….
Found the puzzles relatively easy which was dissapointing having read the reviews, the author has a definite knack for these and I think with more thought he could come up with some real crackers. Corridors joining each puzzle area boring though I did think the VO was funny in places, suggest he joins a team and I think we could see some excellent puzzles as part of a bigger mod.
I’ve added a short video of one of the puzzles that readers emailed about saying it was broken.
I could not really get into this one. It had no flow or pace to it. There was no reason to do anything other then to move to the next puzzle. The maps were a bunch of locked doors and electric balls that I use to kill my old friends, the rebel force. But why am I doing that? The generator to open the door puzzle was ok as it was something new but the rest of this was just not fun. The whole idea of the thing made no sense for me. Sorry but I gotta say-
I did try this one but once I realized it was puzzles only I put it aside. Unlike Phillip I did enjoy Barney, I too have a similar accent and thought that Barney’s humor matched to his mannerisms was a clever piece of scripting, had there been more of this I may have played more, but not being a lover of puzzles I doubt I will go back .
I would look forward to a more conventional HL mod from this team with topical gameplay and Barney portrayed the same way.
LOL this looks awsome! and funny im gona dl soon!
I think I finished it! Though I’m not sure —
Is the end where Barney unplugs the rocket leads and then says “we showed ’em didn’t we” ?????
If so, then I finished it!
Interesting and different – funny in places, but I’m left with the feeling that I don’t really know what’s going on, and a little confused.
But you should play it!
Phil
I simply love this mod, it has a lot of humor, the voice acting is great and there are some good puzzles.
It was just a bit too short and it could have been looking much better, the brushwork was sometimes quite boring.
Not my cup of tea. This relies on shooting black balls (electrified later on) and a few niggling puzzles. This is not a real HL2 mod other than the inclusion of GF (Sam), Barney (Larry, DB (Leader) and the Gravity Gun.
You’re better off playing Research and Development.
Fun little mod that gives a few laughs. Good for killing some time.
This mod looked kind of fun.
But I got stuck on the second puzzle. I mean I couldn’t move once I used either console to move the magnetized rocks, or whatever they were. I couldn’t jump as suggested; I couldn’t even noclip.
I know this is from 08, but I attempt to try it here in 012 and the mod crashes, maybe due to the harmful and hectic steam updates so be warned, this may not work for you as it was for me anymore…, I tried to fix the gameinfo.txt steamtool line changing values from 211-to 215 and 218 as usually fixes the problem, but it didn’t worked at all, if anyone knows how to fix this pass the tip please…
It’s very linear, but it’s mainly focused on puzzles, so I didn’t mind. However, there is some combat (it’s very easy though, and your only weapon is the grav gun). The partner character is very funny, he’s kinda like Wheatley (not just because he’s british). The setting is also very interesting. People have reported one puzzle to be broken but it worked just fine for me. The puzzles aren’t too difficult but are very fun to play. I enjoyed this mod very much, and recommend you give it a try.
Manually
Medium
16 Minutes
Not my cup of tea. Don’t really enjoy this style mod. Played it till the guy yelled “intruder”. On the 5th time of not knowing what to do I quite,
Manually
Easy
15 Minutes