Those readers/viewers who have been following or watching my recent playthrough of Coastline to Atmosphere: Phillip Sings Badly (Yes, the series is called Phillip Plays Badly, but if you watch the video for long enough, you will understand why) may have noticed I cheated on a particular section. In fact, I “cheated” twice.

The first time was because of what I believe is a design error – I left the buggy and progressed forward, only to come back and find the buggy behind a gate that had risen.

Now you could argue that I left the buggy in the wrong place but I argue “How is the player supposed to know?!”. In this case I used impulse 82 to spawn a new buggy. There was no way I was going to replay that whole section again.

The second time, linked to above, seems an absolutely unbeatable section. Every single time, I was instantly killed by a strider, even though I had 100 health points. That seems totally unfair.

Now because I was live on Twitch, I kept playing for a while and eventually used BUDDHA mode and continued. If I had been playing alone, I might have kept trying.

However, yesterday, I reloaded the section from the beginning and replayed it. I finished it in a few moments and felt cheated.

I felt cheated because it was very easy to do but not from where I tried last time. Yes, I know that might not make sense, so just watch the video if you can bear it.

This weeks question was formed from that exact experience. Often you just need to approach a situation with a different tactic and stopping playing and coming back another day is all it needs.

If somebody asked me “Did you cheat when play CtA? I’m not sure what I should say. Technically, I did cheat, but I also beat the section without cheating too.

Thoughts?

Oh, if anybody wants my save file to see if they can pass that section from my exact situation, just le me know. In fact, I might make a mini-challenge from it.

Built for the GameBanana Halloween 2015 Mapping Contest, this map takes you through a spooky mansion.

Can you reach the inner sanctum and find your way home?

Play to find out – if you dare!

We have at least two livestreams scheduled for this weekend and hope many of you can watch and join in the chat.

Phillip will also be finishing Coastline to Atmosphere at some point during the weekend. Check the RTSL Twitter feed for the latest details.

In addition to the streams, we are starting what we hope will be a new regular feature: A live game giveaway.

So, check out the details below and we hope to see you online with us.

All the streams are on the RTSL Twitch Channel with chat enabled.

Howdy All. Here we are with another quick “What The Headcrab” episode. I have a feeling it’s been pretty quite recently, maybe everybody is playing games, instead of making mods etc.

If you don’t know what this podcast is about, please read the What The Headcrab: Introduction.

Below is the podcast, along with the links to each topic mentioned, along with my very brief notes.

Firstly, let me stress: NOTHING HAS BEEN DECIDED YET.

I am posting this to get feedback on a possible change to the site.

As many of you know, originally the site covered many, many SP FPS games, maybe 20. Over time that got cut down to 15, then 10 and now we have 5. All for Half-Life and that’s perfect. In addition to creating the maps and mods posts, I also started creating lots of other types of posts; now grouped into Phillip’s Blog. These types of posts intersperse the main content – the maps and mods.

I enjoy creating these types of posts and I know that a few people enjoy reading them.

4 entries to make you sleep with the light night.

4 entries to make you shiver and shake with fear.

4 entries to have you looking over your shoulder.

4 entries to make you wish you were braver.

Play alone and in the dark – if you dare.

Starting today, I challenge EVERY reader to play all the maps and mods I post in November on HARD. I even challenge you to replay the games on HARD.

I will be doing the same and if you have seen my streams over on the RTSL YouTube Channel you will know how tough that is going to be for me.

Feel free to post you thoughts on the change to HARD here, but obviously continue to post the reviews on the respective map and mods page.

If enough people take the challenge and we have some good discussions, I might even make a podcast about it.

Good Luck!

Welcome to a new category. I’ve been pondering this one for a while and decided to try it. The idea is to start a topic and just let the discussion flow. Unlike the Poll Questions which require a few choices for readers to select, these topics will be more open ended and might contain multiple related-questions.

Just like the Poll Questions, I am very happy for readers to suggest their own topics – just email me.

So, here we go.

How many people who buy the Half-Life games actually play mods?

Since this would be a guess, that’s why I haven’t made it a PQ.

I’d like to think it was pretty high, but there must be quite a few people out there that don’t know about mods.

How do you think they could be told?

The idea of a “huge” potential market is very interesting to me. A bit like I wonder how many Harry Potter (and Star wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who etc etc) fans know that there is SO much community made stuff.

Can’t believe the weather here at the moment – 25 degrees. T-shirt weather. I would have worn my shorts but I haven’t shaved my legs in a month.

Anyway, spent much money in the Steam Halloween sale? Me, nothing.

What else is on your mind?

Don;t forget: no chat about mods listed on the site – please do that on the proper page – thanks.

In June 2014, I started to use a poster from a classic Sci-Fi move as the background for the post image.

This month it is from Beast from Haunted Cave (1959). A group of gold thieves pull of a heist and flee into the snowy wilderness, only to be pursued by a horrible, spider-like monster.

A heist movie AND a huge spider, gotta love that.