Future Games Select and Cayle George bring you a prison escape like no other!
Featuring explosive action and a soundtrack from outrun music legend Lazerhawk, Half-Life: C.A.G.E.D. is a return to the golden age of First Person Shooters.
Break from captivity, conquer the facility and discover the secrets of Half-Life: C.A.G.E.D.!
Featuring:
- Full single player campaign.
- Unlock-able bonus content.
- Music from artist Lazerhawk.
- Developer commentary mode.
- …And more!
This was July 2020’s Classic of the Month mod.
Basic Details
- Title: Half-Life: C.A.G.E.D.
- Author: Cayle George
- Date Released: 21 September 2017
- Related: Project: Quantum Leap
- Related: Caged
Download Options
Awards
Playthrough Videos
The video below is Phillip’s blind playthrough.
The playthrough below is part of the Classic of the Month Event, run by Don AKA Unq.
Screenshots
WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.
All screenshots are 1600×900
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Reader Recommendations
Total Downloads
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22,111Overall
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3Today
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22Last 7 days
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48Last 30 days
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397365 days
Meta Review Data
Statistics based on 31 comment(s) with meta review data.
Installed:
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 31 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 0 Hours, 54 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 26 Mins by CPripyatUit
Longest: 2 Hours by Handsome-Shrek
Total Time Played: 27 Hours, 56 Mins
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 31 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 0 Hours, 54 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 26 Mins by CPripyatUit
Longest: 2 Hours by Handsome-Shrek
Total Time Played: 27 Hours, 56 Mins
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Jump to a review
I can already review it, It was available at 5PM GMT on Steam.
Well, what to say? a short and sweet adventure in a prison, with a great Soundwave soundtrack to give some punch to the regular battles against HECU.
The game is divided in 4 chapters/maps, where you have to accomplish various stuff to escape. It’s an interesting mix between brains and brawls, you “weaken” more and more the prison systems the more you advance, followed shortly by some battles against guards.
I was never lost nor did I encountered impossible fights, even if I died a few times, but you’ll have just enough Health and ammo to go through.
The maps are well made, Cleverly done and the overall ambiance is “badass” and Gun.
The mod seems to have some replay value in the shape of achievments/trophies. The list is revealed in the crédits. Got 2/6 so far.
Manually
Medium
1 Hour
Here is the list of achievements (5 of 6 for me so far) (spoiler’s because for some reason it doesn’t Want to hide…)
Carson’s Hideout : ??
Flatline Fiasco : beat to death the Walter leaning on the émergency room in chapter 2.
Nuclear Sunrise : beat the game
Banana Bandit : what Loadingue said.
Ghetto Blaster Blaster : destroy all playing radios.
Refreshment Rustler : Destroy vending machine in the yard.
I really enjoyed it, however thought it would be longer based on the file size. Anyway, most of this felt familiar and its more an amendment of what I have played before rather than “original”. Its a PIN for sure.
The only minus is the ability to go one way that you can’t make it work, whereas a different way all falls into place. I won’t say more, there is a warning about proceeding, but I think it shouldn’t have been done that way at all – I won’t get more specific as it would be a spoiler. Lets put it this way, with luck you won’t know what I’m talking about! 🙂
Manually
Medium
1 Hour
Do you mean the bathroom by this where it’s possible to get stuck immedieately with only reloading as an option which is really bad game design or something different? Otherwise a nice liittle mod and if the developer is still working on it I would suggest to cut the start and the ending a bit. At the beginning the zoom in on the screen takes much too long and in the end I missed the boat ride at first because I assumed the black screen was the end…
Doug – do you mean the alarm bit?
Wesp – What bathroom are you talking about? Map name? I can’t think of anywhere in this mod you can get stuck.
About the alarm, I never tried it without enabling it. The game might indeed be unsurviveable if you don’t which is kind of a bad game decision. What I meant was the shower room, where you have to stack boxed to get out of and you can easily manoever the small box into a recession of the floor and then it’s game over with no way out. Hm, unless it’s possible to move the bigger box close to where the small one got stuck and still jump out. In that case it might not be the problem that I thought…
No, near the end, there is a text warning if you go the wrong way first in the vents. But I viewed the text like I do “do not touch this button” and proceeded anyway 😀
A really nice mod for HL1. I liked the design of the environments and the dark humour elements (turret wellness for example). Difficulty isn’t too bad except for the 1st section with turrets. I found that if you made a mistake there you always ended up dead. There is nice music throughout the mod that sets the mood and the ending is classic 80’s. Installation was a breeze through the Steam Store and this is definitely something HL fans should check out
Manually
Easy
1 Hour
Also, the bonus section you see when you get all of the achievements has some fun content.
OK, I found the 7th achievement – very well done by the author. That one took some serious dedication to setup!
Well mapped, well designed. Synthwave. Worth your time.
Manually
Hard
30 Minutes
At first I thought it was a big shame that C.A.G.E.D was only about an hour long, but after playing through it, I can definitely say it was worth it and you should go play it as soon as possible without feeling discouraged by how short it is.
The intro sequence, despite being fairly simple in terms of what was happening, looked amazing! And the music that went with it was also very enjoyable. The only complaint I could have is that the text on the monitor was a little small but other than that I really liked it. I also loved how they put together some of the standard scientist’s voice lines in a way that seemed believable and like those were meant for this.
The levels were very well designed, it never felt boxy or empty, there was a lot of detail everywhere and the textures were gorgeous. One thing that I didn’t understand is that in one of the cell rooms it looks like there’s a second floor and there’s an enemy standing in the walkway. The problem is that it didn’t look like a walkway at all so I didn’t expect anyone to be there and couldn’t tell where I was being attacked from (in Philip’s video this room shows up at 41:09 in case you wanna see what I’m referring to. Maybe you can explain how those prisoners are supposed to walk on that tiny ledge :P).
Most fights felt fair and doable, although I barely used the SMG. I don’t know if it’s weaker in this mod in comparison to the base game or if I’m just not using it correctly but I remember it being much easier to kill grunts with it.
The one fight I had trouble with was when you disable the turrets (which I did) and you also have to press a button labeled “Riot Alarm”. I didn’t press that one because I thought it was gonna alert everyone about me escaping and they would break into the room or something. So I had to enter a fight against a whole staff of grunts with just my plunger and an SMG with only 25 bullets. Needless to say it was quite difficult, and is apparently not the way you are supposed to do it because the alarm button drives them all away and you don’t have to fight them (I only found out about that after watching Philip’s playthrough).
The soundtrack was quite nice, the only problem is that sometimes the songs are very short. I’m thinking about how awesome it’s gonna be to fight while a certain song is playing and then a few seconds later it’s already over.
Achievements are a great addition to the game, it adds a bit of replayability to the mod, encourages the player to be on the lookout for secret rooms and I wish other modders would implement something similar.
I haven’t tried the developer commentary yet but that’s definitely another great way of encouraging players to come back for another round and I will be trying it out soon while I look for the 3 achievements that I missed.
Manually
Medium
1 Hour
What a fantastic little gem this mod is. Well worth the wait and effort. So
former professional Valve mapper Cayle George released with this little mod a funny and enjoyable freebie product.
While the story line is rather thin in it your ears and eyes still get plenty of entertainment throughout the game. Be it good new custom textures or even fancy new sound effects specifically created and/or recorded for his mod. That really helps to keep the mod fresh and interesting. Otherwise it would just be another simple escape mod like we’ve seen so many over the last 2 decades for hl1 – including his old original release which served the same premise.
+Great custom textures
+Custom Voice recordings
+Custom audio effects
+Nice new Crowbar (A Plumber) plus specifically created sounds for it
+New Soundtracks which fit the mod well.
+Some interesting npc scripts in use.
+Numerous humorous prison references.
+In game achievements plus lovely outro map.
-Rather short mod with a minimum playtime around 30 minutes or maximum playtime around 1hour depending on your skill and difficulty setting.
-Short on the story elements. Why is the player in this death camp, one that I hardly call a Prison due to executions of prisoners. ^^ What did he do?
All in all a mod well done and thanks for this release. That’s nostalgia pure and is strongly recommended for anyone who wants a break of intense fancy graphic games and hl1 fans in particular.
Manually
Hard
40 Minutes
Well, I started it and after plunging to my death a fair few times in the first chapter found myself thoroughly enjoying the mod. As some have said, it’s quite short, about an hour, but it doesn’t flag at any point. I had to think hard a couple times before I realised what was being asked of me, but it was never unfair.
Was it my imagination or did the weapons seem a bit under-powered from what I remember of the original Half-Life?
The occasional doubling back was required, especially at the very last sequence, to make sure I’d collected everything I required. It only took me multiple deaths to work out what I was missing to get past the last section (I *do* learn things. Eventually.)
Overall, a great bit of nostalgia
Very tough on hard mode, even though I played the old version before. I liked the secret areas and the extra area at the end, at the time I thought the mod ends in the same place as the old version, so I was really surprised that there was another area after that.
A lot of times I had to think about what to do instead of just going straight. Was running by with limited health, and there are literally no wall chargers of any kind in this mod. Some people got the feeling that the shotgun was weaker than normal and I also got that feeling while playing, might have to do with the soldier models or something.
The mp5 looks really nice too. Overall a pretty good hour mod that can get really tough because health is in very short supply. Thank goodness you gave me autosaves right before tough areas.
Manually
Hard
41 Minutes
Well paced, great combat and nice little visual changes to make it a bit more unique than most HL1 mods.
You’ll like this mod if you like HL1 or the whole Outrun/Synthwave scene. Plus points for Lazerhawk.
PS: I replayed it with the commentary on and I encourage everyone else to do the same.
The story behind the making of this game and behind Cayle George as a person is really interesting.
Manually
Medium
45 Minutes
First I want to note I never played or seen the original mod, so this was my first experience with it.
With that in mind, this is one of, if not the best goldsrc mods I’ve ever seen. It’s level of detail is similar to Cry of Fear, and at some points it comes close to looking like the source engine.
On top of that. the puzzles and level design are top notch; I never felt confused as to where I was going, and the puzzles were good at letting you know what your goal was.
The combat however is a bit mixed for me. I played on medium for my first playthrough, and it was very difficult. I often found myself with health in the single digits, and a save I had to keep loading to try to kill one enemy. The enemy placement and level design are good enough so that I didn’t get as frustrated as I though, and I managed to beat the game in one sitting. But unless you like trying to kill the same room of enemies over and over again, I recommend you play on easy.
Another thing that annoyed me was the platforming at the beginning. I ended up dying several times before any real combat because of unfair jumps. One example is you have to jump on a ladder from the side, which isn’t easy with goldsrc’s wonky ladder system. Fortunately, there are well placed autosaves before difficult jumps, and I was never put back too far when I died.
Oh yeah, and the music is great.
Manually
Medium
1 Hour
Nice gameplay and great new textures,
Thanks to the Author for remaking this Mod.
Manually
Medium
45 Minutes
Rarely does a mod hit on all cylinders for me. But CAGED is not only a solid reimagining/expansion of the original Caged map, it is incredibly finely polished and in my opinion has no shortcomings.
Importantly, this includes the length – it’s short and sweet and there’s really no filler material. The textures are fantastic and perfectly fit the grungy prison theme. The style and dark humor scattered around is right up my alley too. And yes, I’m a synthwave fan so I loved the choice of Lazerhawk’s music, and it’s well used too.
In short, CAGED looks great, sounds great, and it’s got great extras like the achievement system, a bonus map, and more hidden secrets – not to mention a solid dev commentary which as a mapper I always appreciate.
By the way, a couple disclaimers: I not only beta tested this mod, but I led the original Project: Quantum Leap of which the old Caged was a part.
Manually
Medium
40 Minutes
WOW, Unq! I didn’t know Caged was an original release in the PQL1 mod. I’ll replay it! Many thanks for the info dude.
I think Unq perfectly resume my filling about this experience 😉 It was a great little experience enhanced by some electo music and really high quality mapping
I will certainly replay this one soon to pay attention to all the thing that I didn’t noticed
Manually
Medium
50 Minutes
I’m really enjoyed by this mod. Perfectly conveys the atmosphere of a typical prison. Short but sweet mod with some puzzles (WE NEED MORE PUZZLES!!! :p) cool soundtrack, nice ending, secrets with achievements. The mod will give a bit of hard time in the area with two helicopters and WHY THIS PLUNGER CAN BREAK VENTS??? This really strange. Music. Yes, music really good but after killing 1-2 soldiers works trigger on turning off song. So we can’t long enjoy by music… Level desigh cool. Really similary prison! But too many emenies. (YES I KNOW WHAT THIS MOD MAY NOT BE ASSOCIATED WITH THE HALF-LIFE’S LORE!) It’s sad too kill only soldiers. Where headcrabs? Zombies? Vortigaunts? Bullsquids? 🙁
But mostly the mod is very cool, play it.
Manually
Medium
40 Minutes
Really enjoyed this and I am not generally a fan of HL1 mods. Why? Well for one thing a lot of the game play is often similar, endless doors, endless spawning creatures, clunky interface etc. I guess I’m just spoilt by the smoothness and superior gameplay of HL2 and above.
Having said that, this was a breath of fresh air. Really liked the idea of not having the random spawning enemies which made it feel a lot more like a HL2 adventure. I played on medium and have to say it was pretty tough. Others have said that the weapons seemed a bit under-powered and I too decided not to sound the riot alarm, making it very hard to get out of the next room in one piece.
As for the achievements, I think I only got the first two so a replay could well be on the cards to try and get the others. All in all definitely worth a PIN rating even for a hardened HL2 player like me.
Manually
Medium
1 Hour, 15 Minutes
Houston we’ve got a classic! I guess this is the perfect phrase to summarize this HL1 mod.
I know it’s a short to medium length mod, but the whole concept of escaping that prison is just greatly done! I mean, the environment is there, the whole tension feeling there too, and also the dark humor is present too.
The combat felt really nice, well balanced and the good use of the map layout was a signature in this mod. The story was neat and simple but that escape felt great man!
I also would say this mod probably has the best music done for a Half-Life 1 Mod in many years. I loved that 80’s tunes and I felt it those 80’s Hard-Rock guitar sounds delightful!
I also like the achievements, and I only miss 2 of them, so I probably replay it in order to get them all. I think there’s a hidden ending scene If you do that.
Anyway! This mod was pretty great to play, I had lots of HL1 cool old school fun!
Play it! You won’t regret it!
Manually
Medium
1 Hour
I have very mixed feelings about this, so let me start with the positive things first.
The mod’s got a soundtrack, and that soundtrack sounds hella dope. Custom soundtracks seem to be a rare thing, and this one sounds extremely cool.
The mod has a sweet intro and seems pretty polished. The map design is pretty fun, the puzzles aren’t too hard and the maps look rather nice overall. The plumber instead of the crowbar is a nice touch. The turret system and keycards are cool additions to Half-Life’s gameplay.
However, and this has caused me to quit so soon, the combat is incredibly hard. I selected “Easy”, as I usually do, and I died about twenty times. It took about 8 shotgun headshots or 25 SMG headshots to kill a soldier, whereas they killed me at 98 HP within 3 seconds. I had to go back 2 minutes once because at 13 HP, I didn’t stand a chance against 4 soldiers. I also think that unlike in HL2, all soldiers fire at once (in HL2, only two members of a squad fire at the same time).
After spending what felt like an eternity on getting past the next combat, I quit in frustration. I’m actually tempted to rate it “Think Twice” or even “Avoid It” right now, but that’d be a bit unfair.
Manually
Easy
26 Minutes
You’re the one saying crowbar was « hard to please » but in fact you’re The one I see always posting harsh reviews about otherwise well-appreciated mod’s by the community, you know!
Hehe, I never said I wasn’t. But I admit, I’m veeeeery picky about what would seem like details to most people (though in this case, the details were fine but I was extremely frustrated by the impossible-for-me combat).
The funny thing is: CAGED doesn’t change anything from standard HL settings – that is, the soldiers aren’t tougher than normal HL and your weapons aren’t weaker.
Masterwork of a mod.
Style meets Goldsrc in this adrenaline filled joyride, with some absolutely fantastic synthwave to top it all. The level design and sense of flow is amazing, with a totally spot on art direction that gives the Rock Island Prison the distinct look of 80s exploitation cinema.
If i’d have to nitpick anything, of course, it would be the duration (falls on the short side) and the kinda cheap difficulty curve at the end (when playing on hard).
Nonetheless, this one goes straight to the pantheon of masterpieces from the Half-Life modding scene.
No doubt about it, a 10/10.
Manually
Hard
2 Hours
I definitely recommend it, it is relatively short, but is also really fun with a lot of great moments, I like how many areas can be tackled in different ways, you can do it the “hard” way and fight everyone head on, or explore for alternate routes that can give you an advantage in combat, which by the way, is pretty hard at times
I wouldn’t say I’m a fan of synthwave, but it added a nice touch of style, along with the awesome ending, oh, and you can’t forget about the achievements, easter eggs, a bonus map AND developer commentary, overall, this is a very polished mod and you should definitely play it sometime, play it on easy if the high difficulty is problem for you, you can still enjoy the puzzles and the map design
Manually
Medium
1 Hour
I already completed this mod on Steam. It was a great amount of fun. I’d say that it is harder than the usual Half-Life mod, but maybe that’s one of the reasons why I enjoyed it.
The maps are very well-designed. It is clear that the mapper knew what he was doing.
Overall, great mod. I gave it a positive review on Steam.
Manually
Medium
1 Hour, 6 Minutes
Great level design, some funny jokes and great ideas. It might be too short.
Manually
Medium
40 Minutes
This is more then Good, this is Great! Mind Blowing infact. The Lighting is GOD like for a Gold Source game. The Sound effects sound much better and higher quality and the environments are so damn detailed. Sorta reminds me of Maximum action, especially with 80s themed ending. Its Difficult too, not that difficult if you know what you are doing really. 10/10 Pls more.
Manually
Medium
35 Minutes
It is a rather short and well put together mod. It has its portion of humor, small puzzles, and action.
Combat is harder than in vanilla Half-Life: I think, enemies have their health and damage raised. But it doesn’t cause frustration. You just need to be cautious and use your brain before engaging.
There is a replayability value: hidden secrets and achievements.
This mod also features new visuals: new models, some textures are overhauled, some are new.
Also, synthwave music!
Manually
Medium
35 Minutes
Wonderful mod!!!
– Clean & modern-feel textures
– Great lighting
– Not hard to find the routes
– A little bit hard but not too hard combats
– Nice music
– Achievement system
Very enjoyable mod. Nice work.
Manually
Medium
1 Hour
It’s 2 weeks since I’ve played it through, and it has left me a lasting impression. This mod is brimful of STYLE and ATMOSPHERE! There were some areas that left me stuck longer than I’d like, but overall I appreciated the puzzles and difficulty. I always appreciate it when mods add some custom voice acting, it may seem like so little but for me it makes a big difference.
Manually
Medium
1 Hour
C.A.G.E.D. doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel, but is just great in every aspect. Good music, challenging combat, interesting setting/visuals. There’s even a few achievements, adding a bit of replayability. C.A.G.E.D. might be a little short, but that’s both a blessing and a curse. With its short length, C.A.G.E.D. manages to accomplish everything it sets out to do with amazing quality.
Manually
Medium
40 Minutes
good
Manually
Medium
2 Hours
Short but very enjoyable experience.
Manually
Hard
57 Minutes
Very Good
Manually
Medium
1 Hour
Classic Run, Think, Survive and Live action
Manually
Medium
37 Minutes
I’ve installed it via Steam instead of here, but I thought leaving a message here would be nice too:
This mod is quite appealing, the graphics and the tweaked weapons were mighty fine, as well as the gameplay being very hard; this choice in difficulty may prove tough to ensnare some fans, but it caught me. Also the synthwave music is majestic, I like Lazerhawk’s works quite a lot
Manually
Medium
47 Minutes
I’ve installed it via Steam instead of here, but I thought leaving a message here would be nice too:
This mod is quite appealing, the graphics and the tweaked weapons were mighty fine, as well as the gameplay being very hard; this choice in difficulty may prove tough to ensnare some fans, but it caught me. Also the synthwave music is majestic, I like Lazerhawk’s works quite a lot
[Repeated comment because this dumbass here forgot to mark the recommendation]
Manually
Medium
47 Minutes