Comments - monster_urby

Oooh. I like it.

It has to be said, that so far, this mod features some very poor level design. The number of times the controls are wrenched away from the player, or a text prompt appears on screen to guide you, is really quite telling.

I appreciate that every level designer has their own way of doing things, but there are still golden rules that everyone should follow. A major rule that Leon appears to struggle with is "show, don't tell." If pressing a button in a room then requires a cutscene to show me what it did, then the layout is poor. If entering an area without a key item requires a "Go back!" message, the guidance is poor. Source has the tools to guide the player without ripping control away from the player every time they press a button. Need to open a distant door? Use a monitor to show the door, or have the door in sight. Want to tell the player that they'll need a keycard? Show them the locked door first!

If the player enters your level and you have to immediately tell them, "There is a keycard in one of the buildings outside," then I'm afraid you've done a poor job.

I've heard Leon's releases compared to the boomer shooters of the late 90s, but even they had level design principles. They NEEDED to follow them, because NPC dialogue and cutscenes weren't a thing. You were always in control. You were expected to find your way and levels were designed with this in mind (most of the time anyway).

The whole thing is pretty bad really. It looks like an early 90s CGI show that you'd see on a kids channel... Oversaturated and cartoonish.

Why has this been uploaded as an addon? The description LITERALLY say's that it's a mod...

Granted, but compare it to the intro of Half-Life or Half-Life 2 itself, there's stuff going on. People aren't just standing around doing nothing. They're walking around, they're having conversations, they engage with the player.

There's also a lack of ambience with most areas being totally silent. Not even a hint of wind or other background noise. In short, even as a demo, it feels very incomplete to be honest.

Well it seems that I walked around some city themed corridors with dozens and dozens of NPCs standing around doing nothing and then it faded to black. There wasn't any gameplay? There weren't any set pieces or things to find? It felt like the first draft blockout of a map.

Uhm... was something supposed to happen in this demo?

Sometimes you come across something you never thought you needed...

and you're absolutely correct.

Yeah, the computer feels out of place. If it belongs to the grunts, I would expect it would be something portable. More along the lines of a crate with a military grade laptop.

Guard rails for the vending machines but not for the stairs? :P

Very satisfying dump.

...wait

Why is there all of this infrastructure inside the volcano now? This seems like an unnecessary addition.

They know what they did.

So tiny...
C.tenor.com

Now this looks great!

Take out some of those lights to make the area more gloomy, and put some barnacles in here, rather than in the brightly lit lab a few feet off the ground. This spot is ideal.

I would say that those barnacles don't really work in this area. They are ambush predators and would likely be found higher above the ground, in a concealed spot. They would work far better in the metal walkway area you also posted, if you remove some of the lights so that it isn't so bright.

I'll see what I can do. We keep legacy copies of all our map source files before making major changes. Wouldn't be too hard to compile one of those to get the before shots.

Looks interesting. Tracking this one.

I like the trailer, but the AI generated voices are kinda bad. Hopefully you can take on some voice actors before the final release. :)

That's a tall order. We would be honoured to be considered just as good, but better? That's quite the act to beat.

Can't say that I understand the point in making a multiplayer map specifically for the alpha version of the game, but some of the details look nice in the video.

Challenger Deep 3: Challenging Deeperer

Ah, yes. The AWS Lambda Logo. Haha

Yeah, I second this. A little too yellow and a lack of variety in general. In an office setting, you could use vending machines/computer screens as light sources in otherwise dark rooms, just to switch things up a little.

Keep it up. :D

Environments look stunning. Dropping a follow and hope to see more. :D

I'll drop a follow. Maps look decent, though there are some minor issues like missing light sources and such. Keep it up though. Can't fault having more Half-Life content. :D

That table DOES looks terribly inconvenient for the space that it's in. It either needs a lot more sides or to just be longer with curved edges.

I was in fact making a very funny joke, implying that Archie's mother is unfathomably large.

That's no way to talk about Archie's mother.

That is fantastic work!

I always wanted to do something similar for The Core in the early days, but lacked the modelling/coding chops. I wanted to extend it to multiple NPCs though, including scientists and guards including different hairstyles, facial hear and other things like headwear, earpieces and eyewear.