Archives for November 2006

• Please note that these are publication date on this site, NOT the actual release date of the maps and mods

About Your software development firm has been awarded a contract from a top-secret organization to assist them in the development of a classified software application. Upon being awarded the contract you catch a flight to go meet with the directors at their new office complex over the weekend. On arrival you are informed that the [...]

Author’s Note “Ok, I’m back, here’s map i threw together this weekend, no enemies, no real purpose other than showing off some texture work i did. This map isn’t meant to be for general gameplay, and as such doesn’t contain ANY AI. Reader RecommendationsCurrently there are no recommendations

About Due to my HDD and subsequent re-format I don’t have any games installed, so I can’t play it for more screenshots or to guess a storyline. Obvioulsy the title is French but I didn’t want to separate the words because that is how it was found. Reader Recommendations1 recommendation, average score: 4 (out of [...]

The types of enemies we face are very important. If they are too difficult, then it spoils the game, too easy and it makes the game boring.

They have to fit with the overall theme of the game and they need to be varied. There are essentially two types of enemy: umanoid (Bipedal – Two legs, standing upright) and Non-Humanoid (Everything else! Headcrabs, Antlions etc).

This weeks questions is simple: Which do you prefer to play against?

I’ve played, or should I say, started to play, a few 3rd person shooters. Splinter Cell Demo (I think), Metal Gear Solid (Again, I think. That’s the the Snake guy, right?) and maybe a few others, but I hated them. Seriously, I really disliked them.

About This is a REALLY useful gameplay mod I found recently for Half-Life 2. It allows you to rotate an object that you have picked up with the gravity gun. Simply press the USE key and move the mouse. Installation is as easy as placing the extracted folder in your Sourcemod folder and selecting it [...]

With the recent release of Rock 24 I thought PP readers might like to hear what the two developers had to say about designing the mod. Below you will find a brief interview with Henley Bailey & Richard Acherki.

About I’m nearly finished play Star Trek Elite Force 2 and at the end of each level, the image to the right appears just before you exit. It sounds good in principle but the designers didn’t really think it through.

About A hazard course specifically designed to use the Zero Point Manipulator (Gravity Gun). The player will face three challenges, the last one a timed challenge. Don’t expect any easy course, because it’s not. Reader RecommendationsCurrently there are no recommendations

The mod takes place on a previously abandoned cliffside prison. The combine have moved in and are re-using the prison as a place to hold rebel leaders. Gordon is required to infiltrate, free the Rebel leader and escape from the facility.

Weapons are a curious thing. We all have our favorite and will fight and argue to the death to defend our choice.

In fact they can make or break a game. Weapons can be broken down into two types: Conventional Weapons (shotgun, pistol, machine gun, grenades etc) and Sci- Fi Weapons (Gluon guns, Hivehands, pulse rifles etc.

So, this weeks poll question is simple; which do you prefer?

About If there is a story to this mod then I don’t know about it. The title suggests one thing but the mod itself suggests another. Reader Recommendations5 recommendations, average score: 3.2 (out of 5), standard deviation: 0.16

Author’s Note “This is the first level to a three part trilogy. You start out in my part of the map once you get into the other house you are in the part Nubblecakes did but we take no credit in the outdoor area. That part of the map was made by Valve….well the brushes [...]

I need to buy a new graphics card and I want to buy a physics card. Probably the same is true for many of you. Well maybe the day will come when you need to buy an A.I. card!

At the time of writing this post I had just posted Poll Question 4 which was related to game A.I., graphics and physics cards. If the graphics and physics need cards why not the A.I.?

There’s no doubt that game graphics have improved tremendously over the last few years, the same seems to be happening with game physics.

Unfortunately, game A.I. is lagging behind.

I’m sure things will improve but who knows when?

Author’s Note “The second map from the “…waystodie” series. Not really expecting to make a third, but that would be excellent, if I hadn’t rattled my brain trying to come up with new things for this map. But here’s the second in the series, I guess it’s sort of also a take on “5MoreWaysToDie” for [...]

I started playing Star Trek Elite Force 2 and whilst it’s not a bad game it’s not as good as the first one. This got me thinking “How often has a sequel equaled or bettered the original?”

Introduction I present three people who I believe would have made excellent game and/or levels designers. I’ve tried to briefly explain why and hopefully you agree. Leonardo Di Vinci Leonardo Di Vinci was a genius. Accomplished in many, many arts, he was a man before his time. He would have certainly seen the potential of [...]

Introduction I was watching television a few days ago, which is very unusual for me, and I was fortunate to see a short clip about Alfred Hitchcock. I started watching in the middle of the clip but he was explaining how mixing different shots produced different results.

Introduction I’m not a big fan of the episodic content release concept. I understand the so-called benefits but think too many people are jumping on the bandwagon. A nice comparison is that of a magazine and a book.

Introduction Thinking about Poll Question 3 got me thinking how a game designer could control the consequences of a player’s choice. Specifically, when a player chooses a particular path what’s to stop them from saving just before the choice and then going back later and taking the other path?

You reach a point in a game where you have to choose between two paths.

The paths do not cross and there is no way to replay either path.

Perhaps the game is a Single Player Online game, meaning you cannot just load from a save point.

Author’s Note “While travelling through the headcrab kingdom, Gordon suddenly realised that he nearly lost one dimension! And while being trapped in this strange world made out of odd blocks and with really weird physical properties, Gordon needs to make his way through packs of headcrabs and reach an oddly scaled castle, which is his [...]