Set in the world of Silent Hill, this canon mod, tells its own story.
The dark atmosphere and ambience will have you looking over your shoulder.
Don’t play alone and in the dark!
Basic Details
- Title: Alchemilla
- File Name: hl2-ep2-sp-alchemilla.7z
- Size : 1.19GB
- Author: White Noise
- Date Released: 18 January 2015
MapTap Users
This file is too large to use directly with MapTap.
Download Options
You can still use it with MapTap once you have downloaded it.
Important Note
The original release was an installer file. My file is a simple compressed folder. If you prefer the official installer it can be downloaded from ModDB.com. Their file is a zipped executable.
Manual Installation Instructions
- Copy the Alchemilla folder into your SourcesMods folder.
- Restart or start Steam.
- Alchemilla should now be listed in your Library tab.
If you require more help, please visit the Technical Help page.
Screenshots
To Follow. Why not send in some? Please make them as large as possible, preferably a minimum of 1920×1080 and in order and I will post them.
Reader Recommendations
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Meta Review Data
Statistics based on 5 comment(s) with meta review data.
Installed:
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 4 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 16 Hours, 24 Mins
Shortest: 5 Hours by Rob Martens
Longest: 60 Hours by John
Total Time Played: 82 Hours
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 4 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 16 Hours, 24 Mins
Shortest: 5 Hours by Rob Martens
Longest: 60 Hours by John
Total Time Played: 82 Hours
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(I’m running Win10, build 9926) …
I downloaded from PP, but couldn’t get it to show up in my Steam games
I downloaded from ModDB, ran the installer and got a desktop icon for the game (which works), but it still doesn’t show in my Steam games
Strange. I’m sure you have restarted Steam, so that’s not the issue. Don’t know if running Win10 has anything to do with it. How about a complete system restart?
I had a similar issue recently which happened when I tried installing a sourcemod somewhere that is not the standart Steam directory (like a secondary SteamApps folder on an external harddrive). Maybe that might be the issue? Always install it into C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\SourceMods\
that could be it – my C: drive is a SSD, and for space reasons, I have Steam installed in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam, but my Games are on another (internal) drive at S:\Steam
I downloaded it from PP and manually installed it and it works fine.
Although I am already stuck, found the flashlight, found the toolbox but nothing to open it. The game won’t let me pickup the scissors so not sure what else to use. Found the basement but nothing their.
Looks like a fun and tough mod.
silly me, I have found the wrench and moved on. Going to take a bit of getting use to, this mod is very different than other HL games. fun through.
I’m still playing it. Don’t know why but I move on..
I responded to voec’s questions about Alchemilla over in this month’s chat, but with an all out mod post now available it seems sensible to migrate and expand my thoughts. Please excuse the reiteration.
To address a few of the mod’s notable irritants:
I wouldn’t consider this a spoiler, since the project page mentions it unambiguously: there’s no combat. If you’re after just the environmental atmosphere of SH 2 and 3, you’ll find it in spades, with some gorgeous texture and model work, but they’ve removed the “survival” aspect from the term “survival horror”. With no need to conserve ammunition or manage healing items, the tension is somewhat diminished, so if you enjoy the give and take of dealing with resources you may be disappointed.
There were a few puzzles that drove me crazy, and that I couldn’t solve without reading ModDB comments, so the team definitely paid appropriate homage to the series. 😉 There’s one in particular that expects you to reason your way to pressing buttons in a certain order based on a judgment of peoples’ sin, but the solution doesn’t make sense, according to my own morality. Maybe it was something lost in translation from Russian, maybe it’s a difference in ethics between me and the developers, or maybe I just missed some other clue, but I couldn’t get past it without help. That and a navigation puzzle toward the end, which is reminiscent of the first game but even more obtuse. Strong as my love for the original may be, there are some things I’m happy to leave in the past.
You will also, unfortunately, find a series of completely inexcusable Pineview Drive style key hunts in SH: Alchemilla. As tempting as it will no doubt be for people to blame it on nostalgia, “What do you expect from developers aping old fashioned game design?”, it must be remembered that from the very beginning, in January of 1999, the SH series has named its keys and provided a map. “Doctor’s Lounge key”, “Bridge Control Room key”, and so on, with matching names on said map. This mod has you picking up “a small key”, or something similar, and expects you to try every locked door in the area all over again. Not my taste, but different mind numbing strokes for different brain damaged folks. 🙂
As for the good stuff:
The 3D art and textures are exquisite, the sound design is nice too (though several of the music pieces are pulled directly from the games; I don’t mind “paying tribute” as a reason for reusing a sound effect here and there, but lifting entire Yamaoka tracks for your score is a little distracting), and there’s a “you haven’t made progress for a few minutes, here’s a tip” hint system that kinda-sorta-almost helps sometimes.
—
Ultimately, despite several obnoxious design choices that I don’t care for, the atmosphere does overwhelmingly evoke that of Silent Hill 2 and 3, and I think that’s what they were going for, so I’d say it’s a success. Story wise, I never really liked the idea of turning the town itself into a “Gauntlet for the Guilty”, preferring instead the first game’s simple (if ornately presented) “let’s sacrifice this girl to resurrect a demon”, but a lot of people do like it, and if you’re among them that’s one more thing you’ll be able to appreciate about the mod.
More clearly breaking down my feelings, I’d make the following recommendations:
Anyone who loves the Silent Hill series, thinks the second and third games were the best ones, and cares more about art direction than combat, will probably find this a solid “Play It Now!”
For those who’ve played any SH title and hated it, this is a hard (and I mean hard) “Avoid It!” Everything you hate about this series, and all the familiar survival horror tropes you can’t stand, are present and accounted for, only even more aggravating.
People who have only heard about Silent Hill, but never touched any of the games, might “Think Twice”. Give it a shot, I suppose, but don’t get your hopes up if you don’t have the momentum of tradition to carry you through the rough edges these types of games tend to have.
If you fell in love with the first game, think every installment since has missed the mark in one way or another, and feel your face get hot and hands start shaking when people talk about the franchise, then you’re like me, and “Play It Later” is more or less a good indicator of what you’ll get out of the experience. Worth playing, but not the phenomenal return to form you’d hoped for.
Since I can only pick one rating for the mod, I’d say it averages out to a “Maybe?”, considering how many different types of players there are. I hate to sit squarely in the middle of the road, but how you feel about this mod really comes down to how you feel about the series proper.
Manually
Medium
5 Hours
Thanks so much for the information. After playing it for an hour and getting nowhere (after getting a key, flashlight and wrench), I’ve seen enough beautiful art and textures (they truly are) and deleted the “game” to save precious SSD space.
Hm, I just played through the hospital and I’m not impressed. Granted, the graphics are great, but the gameplay? Just an endless key hunt, retracking all over the place and that with the stupid doors-opening-causes-black-sceen thing, which really get’s on my nerves! Almost everything is completely static with little exceptions, so nothing to fear or to surprise you. I never played any Silent Hill games, is this just another series of walking-simulators, or it this mod different? I also got a bug that killed me every time in room with the spores and I had to cheat to survive it…
Maybe.
I did not complete the mod. When it first came out I played for a while. The puzzles were fun and the story line unfolds very slowly. Now after a break from playing, I forgot what’s going on and it’s not really my type of game.
Saying that, please look at the other reviews, this game may be right for you. The graphics are good and the level design is interesting and makes you want to search around.
Thanks to the development team, for the right audience it has to be a great game mod.
Manually
Medium
60 Hours
This kind of mod appeals to me more than the run and shoot till your eyes bleed type. In essence it a hundred percent exploration, which is my favourite part of any mod. I do love to kill Combine too!
I have not played silent hill much but this had the same atmosphere and vibe, minus the monsters. It does have graphical quality and a really good music and soundscape.
Even though I knew it had no foes to combat, when the siren sounded it really got my nerves going. It felt a lot like Nightmare House 2.
A real quality mod and very long and enjoyable as long as you check the YouTube walkthroughs for some puzzling puzzles!
Play it as a gentle horror experience, but don’t think you can’t die; especially when your heels are burning!
Manually
Easy
5 Hours
I’ve encountered a bug at the end when you get the landlords key from andys apartment and open the front doors the game closes to desktop. So I couldn’t even finish this.
An almost endless story mod. It could use some non-friendly NPC’s to add some extra suspense and a weapon or two. Even fell asleep a couple times trying to beat this.
Manually
Medium
6 Hours
Please help! I keep on dying right at the end of the hospital section where you suffocate because of those earth grounded living lungs, what can I do?????
Well I have -like almost anyone who has played this mode seriously- mixed feelings about the Alchemilla experience.
But don’t get me wrong. Overall I think it was a good enjoyable experience.
So telling the good aspects of it first, I can definitely say I loved the whole mapping in this mod. Maps were neat, very well done and the whole atmospheric psychological horror is there, if we can put this into one equation then it would be: map scary environment (50%) + map soundtrack adaptation (25%) + in game scary clues (12.5%) + puzzle developing (12.5%) = 100% psychological horror.
You know, is curious how many people say they miss the FPS element on this mod, myself I also thought for a bit that this scary mod was like a classic “point and click” game. But after I get more and more into it, I also consider that was a bit unfair.
I loved how this mod fits nicely into the Silent Hill Universe, and despite you don’t find any monster trying to kill you, nor you don’t use any shotgun to blow any monsters head off, the whole story was deep and scary enough to make you think -the whole story of the protagonist is really sad and makes you think that town is just a living hell from another dimension- . I even want to see the Silent Hill movies to get deeper into that eerie universe.
Overall I think is quite unfair to say this was a bad mod just because you don’t shoot anything in there. So be warn if you like to get into it, you have to be willing to explore a lot and to be open mind about it.
I guess another thing I liked about the mod was its whole “old school” aura around it. You know, fetching things, retrieving keys open doors, you know, all that stuff which is enough entertaining to play a bit hours, and then engage with it the next day. You can really enjoy better the mod if you play it by parts and not in one very big exhausting non stop game time.
Now about the bad things. I think the main shortcoming of the mod is its natural limitation in some game assets. like HUD and not be able to have any inventory at all. Sometimes that makes the game-play very confusing, by not knowing what to do, or which main task you have to fulfill. In a personal view I highly recommend you to play it along with some walk trough: here´s the one I use it and I liked it because it was perfectly done and it was very handy; http://www.silenthillmemories.net/fan/alchemilla_mod_walkthrough_en.htm , Also the gamer can´t crouch nor jump and that sometimes is quite obnoxious because you have this natural HL2 gamer instinct of exploring using the full exploring assets of the main character.
The voice act was really nicely done too, but sometimes I also found some bugs. So I recommend you to install it via Gauge, as you can access the console from there if you have some bug. I had 2 bugs, one in the “living lungs” section where I supposed to pass out I died more than 5 times, luckily I managed to solve this once I re-installed it via gauge. The second bug was about some faulty triggers in the morgue section at the end of it, which I easily solved with “noclip”.
In conclusion this mod is a really good piece of mapping horror in HL2 source engine. Its perfect to play it in some Halloweens eve, and if you want to try the medium library of HL1 & HL2 scary mods, then this one is somewhat mandatory.
I also liked this author work! I think is great and it has some cool quality, reminded me the “Grey” fps horror mod in some parts and in some mapping style reminded me the hegemonic “Cry of Fear” too, so I’d love to see a scary mod from this author where actually you can shoot and kill some monsters, that would be just awesome, by the way, I think he’s developing another scary mod, as I saw it on his Mod DB profile, I hope it will be good as much as this one.
Using Gauge
Medium
6 Hours
It looks great. I’m upgrading the graphics to HL2 so I can appreciate the time spent on the visual aspect. Other than the looks, it’s ok. I like a little more action.