As a level designer I often take a keen interest in the puzzles that others include in their maps. Half Life 2 offers a huge wealth of puzzle possibilities due to the physics engine and the gravity gun. If you ask a player what their favourite puzzle in a game was they could probably tell you immediately (I’d like to know yours by the way) but they may not be able to tell you why.

Equally they may struggle to explain why a bad puzzle doesn’t work, but in reality there are rules to a good game based puzzle and if you follow them, as a mapper you can’t go wrong.

Here’s my rules that I’ve learnt through creating maps and playtesting on how to create a good puzzle.

“The Hazardous-Course 2 is a spoof of the original “Hazard-Course” from Half-Life, which resembles the first player training levels. In contrary to this, the Hazardous-Course, as it’s name let’s suggest, is much more dangerous. Although it’s a mod for a first person shooter, the player can only wield a weapon at the designated target range. So it plays more like an adventure.”

It might seem such an obvious answer but I don’t think they should.

Here is how my thinking goes…

Regular first person shooters don’t always get harder as the game or mod progresses.

They tend to get more complicated, because you get better weapons, which means the enemies get bigger or harder. But that in itself doesn’t mean the game is harder.

I’ve probably posted more of Miigga’s maps on PP than anybody else.

Well, I finally managed to arrange an interview with him and here it is.

We chat about his mapping, his maps, his map names and even why there seem to be so many mappers from Finland!

Hope you enjoy it.

If you have any questions of your own, please post them as comments and hopefully he will be able to answer them for you.

Late last year a pp reader posted a review about a map which went against the general consensus. Everybody has a right to their own opinion and if somebody doesn’t like a mod that most people do then that’s fine.

Well, most of the time it’s fine.

Art mods, Alt Mods, or whatever you call them are changing the way we think about modding. With me today is Robert Yang, one of the leaders in this revolution.

Robert Yang and I discuss them and their impact.

This recording was originally made for Podcast 17, but due to some scheduling issues we decided to post it here.

Starting in an apartment building you need to make your way through City 21 until you reach the port.

Of course, along the way you are attacked by numerous Combine enemies.

Your only hope is a fishing boat.

Can you make it there alive?

No story, no setting, nothing.

Just an enclosed sewer area with zombies coming out of the radioactive slime.

How many can you kill?

What’s all this obsession with multiple endings?

I don’t get it. Really, what is the obsession with multiple endings?

I understand that gaming can and probably should offer us something we don’t get in real life but this one just doesn’t make sense to me.