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3×10: Competition 2: DefendVille

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

For this competition, you must create a scenario where you have to defend your outpost from a Combine attack.

The player should have approximately 10 minutes to prepare for the defence, including moving turrets, or other obstacles.

Ideally, the design would allow for players to try slightly different strategies on replays.

15th November 2013 124 Comments

3×10: Competition 1: AmbushVille

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

For this competition, you must create a senario where you are ambushed by Combine Forces.

There are no limits to map(s) size or playtime. You can set the map in any environment that you want.

Please see the rest of this post for full details.

11th October 2013 58 Comments

SCRAM Half-Life – In Development Mods

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

SCRAM is a modification to the original Half-Life single player game. It does not have any new content such as enemies, weapons, or maps.

The intent is two-fold:

1) Make HL more challenging, Enemies are tougher, faster, and smarter. Although your weapons are just as strong as in normal HL, you can’t carry as much ammo for most weapons, particularly on the higher difficulty levels.

2) To offset some of the increased challenge, the real heart of SCRAM is a reward system. In each map (after the tram ride) there are 3 lambda nuclei that can be found. Finding the nuclei can earn you rewards (ammo, health, armor) at the very end of each map. Find one and you might be rewarded – find two or all three and you’ll definitely get a nice gift at the end of the level.

2nd October 2013 6 Comments

The Order to Play HL Games

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

I’m working on a Half-Life FAQ page that would answer the most common questions posted on the half-Life Reddit page.

Since I’ve been a regular there, about 6 months, I’ve seen a lot of the same questions asked, especially around the Steam sales times.

One such question is Shall I play the games in chronological release order?

7th August 2013 18 Comments

Black Mesa Source for TREE?

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

For those that don’t know, The Replay Experience Experiment is an event where we replay all the games in the Half-Life series and discuss each chapter and how our feelings have changed since we first played them.

It was always my intention to include Black Mesa in the event but I had been hoping that it would have been finished by now.

As you probably know, Black Mesa is a remake of Half-Life in the Source engine (the engine used in newer Valve games), and whilst it’s not an exact recreation of the original it is very, very similar.

27th July 2013 16 Comments

Beginning, Middle and End. Post-MortemVille

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

Now that BeginningVille, MiddleVille and EndVille have been released, I thought it might be nice to look back at the competition.

I have to admit that after every competition I say to myself “This is the last one” and this one is no different.

Perhaps I set my hopes too high and dream of ten entries for each competition – each one a really interesting interpretation of the theme.

27th July 2013 34 Comments

BetaTestersCollective Leaves PP

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

I am very pleased to announce that the BetaTestersCollective is now a fully independent website and project.

I had been looking for a project leader for a while and after a few failed attempts finally found Ade, one of the testers who has worked very hard over the last few months to make it happen.

Ade is now the sole leader of the project and is in complete control. I will of course, offer any guidance or help requested.

16th July 2013 10 Comments

Fake Half-Life 3 Websites – BEWARE!

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

I’m sure we all agree that regular PP readers are smarter than most Half-Life players 😉 but I wanted to warn everybody about a slightly disturbing piece of news I read on the Half-Life subReddit, which linked to a Softpedia article.

Put simply; scammers are creating websites purporting to give users early access to alphas and betas of the game.

The actual URLs are listed in the Softpedia article and I won’t repeat them here, visit them at your own risk.

16th July 2013 8 Comments

Donation Appeal 2013

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

I dislike asking for donations for the site and haven’t done it in a while. There was a time when the advertising brought in 30/40 US Dollars a month and that covered all the costs, but that has dropped to 7 US Dollars and the fund is running low.

The main reason I am asking is so I can upgrade the server. I was thinking of moving hosts because, let’s be honest the site has been pretty flaky over the last few months. But whoever I move to there will always be issues. Unless I spent hundreds of Dollars a month on dedicated servers, I’m stuck with basic services and we have a phrase in English “Better the devil you know!”

8th July 2013 29 Comments

3×24: Competition 3: EndVille

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

And so it continues.

This is the third and final competition of the 3×24 Mapping Competition Series.

It is unsurprisingly called EndVille.

Full details are below.

28th June 2013 29 Comments