Otter.

0 comments by Otter. on May 3rd, 2012

Well if you couldn't guess from the title, I decided that I finally get into the modding scene and hopefully make my first mod for Portal 2.

Hammer always scared me a bit. I always hear "horror stories" about the source engine and its editor, how it is full of bugs and such, but I am willing to go "into the abyss". I'm sure it will probably be a hard road, especially starting from scratch, but hopefully with the help of some sites on the topic I might come out victorious, so to say.
Now before I go into some details, you might know why I decided modding Portal 2 and my answer would probably be yes, the new DLC with the in-game puzzle editor will be my way to start. I'm probably not the first to come up with this idea, but somewhere we got to start, this will just make my job way easier since it is possible to export the finished in-game maps to Hammer.

Now about the mod: It will be a small, test chamber pack with around 15-20 maps or maybe more if I can think out a few extra. It'll have a complete story, set shortly after the events of Portal 2 in the depths of Aperture science laboratories. You will be the little helper of a personality sphere who is responsible for the maintenance of the new source of electricity in Aperture after GLaDOS realized that the previous core was quite dangerous in the "almost-exploded-and-destroyed-the-whole-lab" kind of way, and it is also running on a finite resource. But something bad has happened and now the whole lab runs on generators. The player plays a disabled core, who has been activated and put into a spare replacement body of Atlas to find and fix the error as quickly as possible before "The boss lady" notices anything. And the road there isn't as easy as one would think.
Of course it isn't going to be a serious mod. I already planned the beginning and ending (obviously), a few story elements and test chambers, jokes, the main theme of the mod and the maintenance Core's personality.

The hard part is - apart from not knowing anything about Hammer as I previously mentioned - is that I probably need a few custom models. I can't do 3D modeling sadly and I only have an average laptop to work with even if I wanted to try. It can run a few games well, but 2GB RAM and 2Ghz processor won't take me far. Also it's the last month of spring, the season of exams, so I don't know if I even have the time or willpower (which I sadly lack) to work on it constantly, although I'm not planning to develop it indefinitely. I aimed to release around early or mid June.

What I certainly need at some point are:
- A 3D modeler to make me some custom models compatible with Hammer.
- A voice actor (I planned to do it, but I only have a pretty bad mic and it would waste a lot of time to get rid of the noise and static and only after that I can start making the voice more robotic.)
- Beta testers (But that's thinking way ahead)

So that's about it. First I work out the whole concept and dialogue (or more like monologue) until the 8th of May, then I can hopefully start without to much problem and bugs.

Wish me luck!

_{Any personal thoughts/suggestions/lessons/errors are welcome in the comments.}