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.

The word “coast” is very evocative. Long walks on the beach, pretty little seaside towns, high cliffs with waves crashing against them.

We would like you to build a map that has “coast” as its main setting. We leave the exact type of location to you but here are a few ideas.

A port used for storing and loading containers, a beach with little coves to explore, a re-imagining of Lost Coast, a cliff wall with caves and walkways, and finally a map where the player has to work their way along the coast through outposts.

Driving maps will be accepted but please think carefully before choosing this type of gameplay – it often involves a lot of work for very little player interaction.

We have purposefully chosen this theme as we feel it is open enough for all standards of modders yet also offers the possibility for many types of interpretation.

Good Morning and welcome to 2018.

You have chosen or been chosen to start this year with a love of Half-Life.

No game has ever affected you in such a way.

Other games have pleased and excited you, but not in the same way Half-Life.

Half-Life can’t be replaced by shiny graphics or VR.

Half-Life is and will always be your favourite.

Nosocomephobia is a fear of hospitals.

Something’s definitely not right with this place…

You are sent into a Russian mining outpost to investigate a distress call sent by the miners.

Figure out whats happening and try to locate any living members.

This is a short documentary about Headcrabs.

I created the concept, wrote and recorded the script and provided general artistic direction.
Niker produced the video and had full artistic control.

Niker107’s channel can be found HERE.

Borderworld Productions is the name I will use if we make more videos like this.

A little while ago, I posted an unofficial weekend challenge. The theme was 3 states of matter: Solid, Liquid and Gas.

The idea was to try to encourage clever and interesting use of those ideas to create puzzles and situations for the player to face.

Unfortunately, only one person sent a map in and this is it.

It’s very short but offers some simple puzzles.

This mod features 17 individually created entries to play, each using the idea of combining at least 3 themes from the list below.

They are set in a variety of locations and have multifarious gameplay ideas.

This could be one of the best Villes ever!

This was August 2020’s Classic of the Month mod.

Much, much later than expected or hoped but I am pleased to announce exactly what is happening next year regarding the mapping challenges.

I will give a brief summary of each event and a link to that event for everybody interested to read the details.

It’s been a lot of work and there are still plenty of things to finalise but I am sure it will be worth it.

Right, let’s start with the overview. I have created a calendar (which took WAY longer than expected), which contains all the events. Each event has a link to the main page as well as the individual challenges of each event, except for the EMCs.
Homepage: CALENDAR

The Lambda Cup is the new name for the Hammer Cup. I changed it because I wanted more flexibility. It’s more or less the same as this year, but the points, prizes and judges have been improved. The Suffix for these events will continue to be “Ville”.
Homepage: LAMBDA CUP 2018

The Mesa cup is a series of 3 mapping challenges built for the retail version of Black Mesa. The Crowbar Collective will official support the Cup, but more details on that soon. The suffix for these events will probably be “Zone”.
Homepage: MESA CUP

Hereby now known as EMCs, the challenges will last either 50 or 72 hours and be focused on very specific ideas and concepts. The suffix for these events will probably be “Ism”. The homepage for these events does not contain much detail yet. The calendar also has “potential EMC dates”, in cases modders want a weekend mapping objective.
Homepage: EXPERIMENTAL MAPPING CHALLENGES

I can’t say much about this yet, but you will see from the calendar that it is the longest mapping challenge of the year. Stay tuned for details.
Homepage: SPECIAL CHALLENGE

Escape. A simple word but one with many possibilities.

In this old school mod, you simply have to escape.

Don’t expect beautiful views , clever puzzles or rewards for careful exploring.

Expect some fun shooting enemies though!