So, I was chatting with Dylan via Steam Friends yesterday and he told me he was bored. OMG, I wish I had time to be bored. I decided to challenge him and see what happened. I told him he had 123 minutes (Don’t ask me why I said that, it just sounded about right!) to make a playable SP level with orange textures, two weapons and unlimited ammo. The rest was up to him and this is the result.
Basic Details
- Title: Dylan Holcomb Two Hour Challenge
- File Name: hl2-ep2-sp-dhthc.rar
- Size : 153.85Kb
- Author: Dylan Holcomb
- Date Released: 25 January 2009
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Installation Instructions
- Copy dhthc.bsp into your Half-Life 2 Maps folder.
- Launch Half-Life 2
- Open the console and type map dhthc.
- Press enter/return or click the Submit button.
- Play and Enjoy.
Screenshots
Click on the thumbnails below to open a 1024 pixel wide image.
WARNING: The screenshots may contain spoilers.
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Reader Recommendations
3 recommendations, average score: 3 (out of 5), standard deviation: 0
Published
25th January 2009
Categories
Half-Life 2: Ep2, Single Player Mods and Maps
Tags
AR2 | Combine Soldiers | Crossbow | First Seen On PP | Indoors | Phillip says Maybe | Very ShortGet the most from the comments
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11 Comments
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[...] Dylan Holcomb Two Hour Challenge (HL2:Ep2) [...]
25th January 2009
It’s hard to get too excited about these kinds of levels, but you have to remember the circustances it was made under. I actually had fun playing it but not everybody will think it’s worth it.
If you like to just play for a few minutes, yes really, just a few minutes then play this. Obviously if you are looking for a story and beautiful scenery avoid it. I still think it’s possible to make something really fun to play without textures and I may start other challenges with more time but limited in some other ways.
Thanks to Dylan for accepting the challenge and for agreeing to release the map here on PP.
25th January 2009
I really like the idea for this kind of map. Phillip, I definitely think you should set more challenges like this and see what comes from it. It would be great for publicity for the site too. Interlopers have their monthly map challenges but they are just for aesthetics. It would be good to see some maps that are actually playable.
But anyway, on to the map itself. While the content itself was not bad it was definitely a ‘getting from A to B’ style of gameplay, which doesn’t really lend itself well to time constraints as relies on showing more and more content. I think this map would have benefited from a style of gameplay based more around repetition (e.g. something like deathmatch or defending an area) as it would have maximised the gameplay time from a comparatively small amount of content.
This is a good effort for just 2 hours and I think I appreciate it more from a design standpoint than I do as a player. With a little more time or a different overall design approach it could have been considerably better.
25th January 2009
Ha ha, you know, it was morning where I live when I made this, and I would really love to take the challenge again sometime!
25th January 2009
Phil, I just got an idea, and seeing that you aren’t on Steam, I’ll give it to you now.
Perhaps a two-day challenge, or two week challenge where I make a full-blown mod in dev textures.
This would give me a little extra time to learn new things about gameplay, because most of my maps are just good-looking scenes.
I really wanted to expand upon this map, and even texture it, but for some reason Hammer won’t let me touch it.
27th January 2009
I think it would be great to host HL2 mapping contests that focus on different themes.
4th February 2009
This map was talked about on this weeks edition of Podcast17: http://www.podcast17.com/transmissions/c11225
17th March 2010
Well, something didn’t work for me. I didn’t have any ammo crates for the crossbow (I got a nice Error model-thing), and the zombine couldn’t be created for some reason. But I had pretty colors.
(Really, the Combine in the different locations had different colored lighting?) And the unlimited ammo for the pulse rifle made the crossbow unnecessary, anyway.
If you want an HL2-style mod, you probably don’t want to play this. If you want something to do for 5 minutes, or want to play everything out there it’s playable.
17th March 2010
Well, dur. I had the map in my HL2 maps folder, not my Ep2 maps folder.
Zombine created. Crossbow ammo crates visible. Combine not in pretty colors… It was more boring this way, actually. LOL. (Maybe only because it was my second time within 2 hours.)
Phillip, why are Ep2 maps showing up in the HL2 list?
17th March 2010
EP2 maps aren’t showing up in the HL2 list, just this one was. I missed categorized it, corrected now, sorry.
17th March 2010
It’s okay Phillip. The Error icons “matched” the orange walls. And, like I said, the Combine were in kind of pretty colors the first time.
I noticed when I was about to rename my DL–so you have a good naming convention (in case you ever wondered).