This experimental mapping challenge has two aspects.

For this challenge, we would like you to find a partner and work with them on the entry. As part of your entry, you MUST include a readme that states what each person did.
Your partner does NOT have to be another mapper, but can be. They could be an environmental artist, a modeller, a sound/music artist, a texture artist – it’s YOUR choice.
It’s impossible for us to define or check how much each partner does, but we would like to feel it’s a minimum of 70/30. Meaning that the junior partner does at least 30% of the work.

Phillip’s Note: “Remember, the Experimental Mapping Challenges (EMCs) are a chance for mappers to try something new. Not just in WHAT they produce but HOW they produce it. I would like to think that in a few years time, mappers who entered the challenges can say that they learnt, improved and benefited from doing so. Working in a team is something that people often have to do, sometimes against their will, but it can be a useful experience.”

For this challenge, we would like you to take one aspect of Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Ep1 or Ep2 and take it to the extreme.
Firstly, that doesn’t mean simply adding hundreds of enemies or set the whole map a standard vent.
We accept that thoughtless and over-use of any aspect of any game can produce boring maps, so the judges hope for clever intepretations of the theme.

You may set your maps in whatever location you choose and they can be as short or as long as you want. Think carefully about the three games above and try to find some aspects that will produce some unusual and interesting maps.

Here is an example, although we hope you consider other things.
Exploding Barrels. Imagine a map whose only form of attack was with exploding barrels. Perhaps the enemies are behind defenses that your weapons can not penetrate or maybe barrels must be placed against walls to progress. Or even a puzzle where the barrels must be placed in certain places to allow a chain-reaction. That might lead to some fun maps.
Simply adding lots of exploding barrels to a level is not what we are looking.

You just have to find an aspect that interests you and take it to the extreme. Remember, this is an experimental mapping challenge and therefore it is about pushing the limits. GOOD LUCK!

11am UTC Monday 16th April 2018

I am pleased to say that this fan fiction event seems to have been a success.

7 reports were received, each with a differing style and tone.

The link to the PDf is below, along with a poll for you to vote for your 3 favourite entries.

Thanks to all who entered. There will be another fan fiction event in May.

Left-clicking the link below will open the PDF report in your modern browser. Right-click, to have the option of saving it to your computer. It’s approximately 184KB.

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?

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

You find yourself in a cabin. There doesn’t seem to be a way out, or is there?

Find the keys and follow the clues.

Don’t forget your friend!

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.