Under Hell Interview

Introduction

I recently got the chance to chat with a couple of members from the Under Hell team, which is a horror mod for Half-Life 2. Below you will find the transcript and some PlanetPhillip Exclusive images. It’s quite detailed, so get comfortable!

Can you please tell me you name and your position on the team?
Mxthe Hi, my name is Jeremy aka Mxthe or Jimmy; I am the leader, coder, scripter, lead mapper, sounder, voice artist, 2d artist and 3d artist of the mod.
Yoguih Hello, my name is Yoann Aka Yoguih; I’m a concept artist, mapper and 2d artist in the mod Underhell.

How did the idea of the mod first start?
Mxthe Well, the real origin was with Seriousk, we were playing the Dotd Css mod, by Alex Royce, on the map Dotd_hellhold no longer available I think; it was really great. So we were playing the map, Seriousk and I, against 50 bots computer controlled, with knives only, which is the main concept of the Dotd Css mod, in this dark map, which is actually DM_lockdown without lights, and with horror sounds. Seriousk and I were pinned down a corridor, with no escape, and the bots just kept coming, and we kept shooting with the shotguns, and I then thought: This is the best experience I ever felt, and I talked to Seriousk about making a map pack, which would take place a huge jail, with zombies, and coop, and that’s how the basic concept came.

Can you explain a little about it?
Mxthe I think everyone on the team has a different story, because, we are all part of a team called Chips, it’s a counter strike source team, we’re all players, and well, meanwhile Seriousk and I were starting this jail map pack, Yoguih and Darkscale had the idea to make a Coop mod of their own, we talked all together and decided to merge, because the idea of zombies in a jail, was appreciated by us all. After some time I realize, it could not be done I wanted something like Dead Rising in coop, hundreds of zombies to shoot, and just shoot in coop, as trying to escape the jail, I was thinking about a 10 floor jail, all the player start on the first floor, in different rooms, and they have to meet, and start going up, and every floor with a checkpoint, and each time a checkpoint is passed, if a player died, he would restart there, and at the end, when they manage to escape would’ve been a little movie. That was the first concept of the mod, but I abandoned because, too many npc on a server makes it lag, and it would be possible to create, but impossible to play: Imagine a css server with 100 bots?

What would you say are the main influences for the mod?
Mxthe Well soon after we get faced to the cruel reality about multiplayer, we thought a single player mod would be just as cool, and even more, because in single player, we can script scenes, random scenes and story, in multiplayer it’s almost impossible to script events, because you can’t anticipate all the player’s movements.

So we had a new concept, and hundreds of ideas started in our heads, I absolutely wanted to add Ghosts in the game, like Japanese horror movies The Grudge, or The Ring, or One Missed Call, or many others! And so we saw on FakeFactory mod, the perfect girl

With some reskin, she would be the perfect Ghost, in honor to the movies she had to be Japanese, and so she was, now any ghost needed a story, linked to the people they haunt, in this case the player, so the story kept getting all together to the final concept, which I will explain later. The mod is inspired by all theses games and movies we all love, and want to thank for the great time we spent playing them. I will cite a few games: Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Doom, Half Life, Metal Gear Solid, Dead Rising, and F.E.A.R.. Or movies: Silent Hill and Resident Evil too, The Grudge, The Ring, Identity, Psycho.

Tell me about the music and its role within the mod.
Mxthe The music will play a huge role in the mod, we are not in half life here, or in F.e.a.r where the player IS the player, our player will have a past, a story, he will think, and there will be cinematic scenes, and as a short movie director I was in the past, I will try to make theses cinematic really really impressive, and spectacular, but then not too big as in MGS2, where 19 hours of cinematic was present.

Have any particular mods inspired you?
Mxthe Besides the Dotd Css mod, which was in Css, about putting 40 bots in the terrorist team with knives only, and all player in the ct team with only shotguns; besides this mod, I don’t see any other example, maybe the really DOTD mod that died slowly for many problems (RIP DOTD)

If you had to define you objective for this mod, what would it be?
Mxthe Our mod is not about winning prices, being the mod of the year, or competition like that; we leave that to the pros! We want to offer the best gaming fun, horror, Sci- Fi experience to the player, like we all miss in theses dark times, when Video Games prefer graphics to story. The theme word of the mod is not fight to survive, it’s Have fun Surviving

Which is more important, gameplay or atmosphere?
Mxthe Atmosphere is from far, the most important, a good gameplay with no atmosphere, makes a shitty game, the atmosphere must be tense, the player will always be nervous, about what can happen in the game, because I will tell you a cool thing we get in the mod, simple yet deadly : Custom Scenes

The system of this is simple, when the player enters a scene, with other npc in the game, npc that have a role, there will be 2 or more possibilities of scenes, which will be picked randomly, and played, which means, almost all scenes will be random, and the order at which the objectives will be given, will also be random, yet I am not talking about an Elder Scrolls here, the player will not be 100% free, and the order won’t be as random as in a RPG, but there will be some random events.

What about basic gameplay?
Mxthe Well we want to make a realistic mod, I am seriously thinking about taking off the HUD, which means there would be NO info to the player, no ammo number or life number, it adds a lot of realism, and nerves, because you have to count the bullets in the clip as you fire, and that is great…That’s the way real soldiers do.

About the life, we are using some kind of COD regenerating system, no med kits, if you get shot, you have to get to cover, to slowly regenerate your health, if you are close to death, the screen goes red, and shakes, more it shakes, the closer you are to death.

About soldiers, we are using new Backup System; if a soldier on patrol spots you, he will fire at you, and take cover, if you do not kill him fast, he will call for backup, and more soldiers will come, once you have killed them all but one, the survivor will try to retreat, and after a while, call for backup again, of course, there are no infinite soldiers, and the number of soldiers that come in backup is limited, but it makes the fights completely RANDOM, and it adds a MGS touch to the mod.

About zombies, same as above, if a zombie spots you, he will scream and more zombies will come, slowly of course, zombies can’t run, I want the original zombies of daddy Romero, one bullet in the face, and it’s over, but you can’t kill a zombie by shooting his foot, well you can but, you would have to keep shooting for hours.

About sound detection, we are trying to add a sound detection system, which means if you are in what I call “Infected zone” which means there are zombies near, and you make much noise, like fire your gun, or break something big, zombies will actually hear it, and come, so when you are in “danger zones” better take your shoes off and walk slowly.

What can you say about the gunfights, or the horror scenes?
Yoguih The violence of gunfights has reach a high level in our mod, thanks to the bullet-time, but also to the very numerous weapons ; the violence will be similar to F.E.A.R., yet with more options, and more blood. To contrast all theses gunfire, there will also be horror scenes, which will be scary and very important to the storyline; like the dreams, or nightmares, hallucinations will occur throughout the mod, and will be shown as metaphors.

Can you tell us more about the enemies of the games, which are, from what we know Ghosts, Zombies and Soldiers?
Yoguih I will not reveal everything, but I can say the soldiers will be far from being harmless, they will be many kinds of soldiers, Grunts, Elites, Exos, Stealthx and some machines will escort them; all theses enemies will have for objective to fire at anything that moves; in the game, the Code Red has been given, and when it’s the case, the base must be completely exterminated, and everything must be destroyed, but data must be kept, to be able to establish a new compound somewhere else, that’s what the Code Red is about, so the soldiers that are sent, must kill everyone, or “everything” inside the base, humans, scientists, and other live beings, or dead beings.

There will be other kinds of soldiers, which are the prison guards, the soldiers sent to clean the base, are not the same that the actual soldiers that guard the base, theses ones will be in the same situation than any other survivors, so they will be allies, and will help the player throughout the game.

Ghosts will be hallucinations that will change the course of the game, sometimes will help you, and sometimes will give you a hard time, but in all cases, they will freak the player out, as you could see in trailer 3, which was just a “demo” of what you will see in the final mod.

About the zombies, well all I can say is, that they will not give the player a great challenge, they are here to add fun to the game, and horror, they are the main enemies of the game, you will kill many zombies during the mod, but there will never be infinite zombies like in some games.

About all NPCs, I can say the realistic damage will be applied, all humans will die realistically thanks to Hitboxes, some creatures will resist to gunfire, and some others can ONLY be killed by headshots, like the zombies for example.

How would you describe the ambience of the levels in Underhell?
Yoguih Well, in Under Hell, you will explore dark places, hidden places, places we don’t speak of, places we only make nightmares of, I think the ambient would be, disgusting in some places, but always tense, I mean, what ruins many games, is the fact that you know the limits, you know the game won’t go very far, that the NPCs, are just NPCs, you know they are not smart, and they won’t do anything you can’t expect, that is what we are trying to avoid in Underhell, with the custom scenes, and custom script system, we can make scripts, that play custom at different places, so it will be script in some places, but rarely twice at the same place, and rarely twice the same way, there will be few kinds of gameplay, the horror gameplay, where the weapons are useless, and combat gameplay, where you better use your brain, than your weapons, because in 2 or 3 bullets, you are dead, Underhell is about realistic damage, all that makes it a unique mod, tense, and fun.

What about new content in the mod? I heard you used Smod, tell us more.
Mxthe Well sure, the mod will have many features:

Your website doesn’t really hint at a story, can you give my readers a small clue?
Mxthe Of course Phillip; the story will have many, many puzzles, but the main story, is about a SWAT team leader (the player) going in to rescue dozens of hostages that were taken in a train depot, by mercenaries, as the team goes in, the Swat Team leader blanks out…And when he wakes up, everyone died, hostages, terrorists, and his companions; for multiple homicide the protagonist is sent to jail for lifetime, but as he arrives, the protagonist realizes it’s not a common prison, and some weird things are happening in there.

Is the story in anyway connected with the Half-Life Universe?
Mxthe No, not connected, but inspired, I say inspired, yet without half life the mod would be the same, I say inspired because the mod takes place in an underground base, so it’s similar to half life, but the mod has nothing related to half life, maybe some Easter eggs but nothing about the story.

Easter Eggs? Tell us more about it.
Mxthe Well the fact that, the mod is inspired by many movies, and games, made me want to put some Easter eggs in it, hidden objects, pictures, or just people’s names, or what they will say during the mod, will remind you of some of the games or movies cited above.

Could you give us an example?
Mxthe Sure, for example, the name of a scientist in the base will be Nikola Carmack, Nikola for the famous scientist Nikola Tesla, who made great discovers about electricity and Carmack from the scientist in Doom, who “unleashes” all the demons in the base.

Approximately how many maps do you think the finished mod will have?
Mxthe We are trying something there, to make the maps as big as we can, we will try to make one map per floor, highly detailed floors, and the player can go back up and down as much as he wants, we will try to optimize all this, so the fps will stay correct, and so the loadings won’t be too long. I remember when I first bought hl2 with 512 ram I had, each time there was a loading, I had time to go out and play football with some friends, and I really don’t want that.

Will the story end or will there be room for a second part?
Mxthe There WILL be a second part and a third, because the end of the first part is…Not ended I could say; now the great question that remains is: shall we make 3 mods? Or merge all 3 mods in one? That’s what I’m focused on right now.

Are you looking for any new team members?
Mxthe Yeah actively looking for Architecture Mapper, and Animators/Modelers, but it’s just to add few effects, the mod will not NEED any further modeling or animating, but if we can make some dismembered zombies, it would be nice.

I know who have said it will be released when it’s done but how is it progressing?
Mxthe Well all the coding is done, and bound to the Smod’s fate, all modeling was made by all the people in the credits, and the mapping is progressing, slowly but surely. The dialogues are being written, the story and events are completely written, and sounds are being gathered or recorded. I would say a good 35%

What can you tell me about this new gameplay mode called “Laserquest”?
Mxthe Well before all, I will say that we are not SURE it will be in the final mod, the point is, we would like to make multiplayer gaming mod, including coop. But for that, the Smod needs to be possible in multiplayer.

The Laserquest as you might have figured is about a laser weapon, the Smod has a great laser weapon, very powerful, which is actually the most powerful weapon of the game. This game mod would be like this:

One laser is placed randomly, in a huge map, when a player picks it up, he emits a beeping sound, so all players can hear where he is, this player becomes the prey, and the hunter at the same time, all players must kill him, to steal the laser, and become the Laserguy, the laser kills in about 0.9 seconds, and the secondary trigger, laser explosion, blasts everything around it, so yeah it will be challenge to kill the Laserguy, but also, it is hard to survive alone against everyone.

You have a HUGE credit list, what’s that all about?
Mxthe Well, as I said, the mod is not about being mod of the year, but it’s about being fun playing, so we thought, why creating a H & K Mp5k, when there are over a hundred available on the web, and we can ask permission for it to the author, and add it in the mod, and actually make marketing for the weapons used, we thought it was a great idea, placing already made models in the mod, asking for permission, and writing all credits, and links to the weapons used on the website, which will make all our visitors actually view, or download the concerned models; this way, everyone’s happy.

Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions and is there anything you would like to say in closing?
Mxthe Thanks to you Phillip, and yeah I would like to say a few words to all theses great modelers that made all theses great models we use, I would like to say a big thanks to them all, and that if you ever see your weapon in the mod, and that we have not asked permission to you, and/or place your name in the credits, please don’t blame, and tell us, so we can place you in the credit, almost all the weapons model we downloaded had NO CREDIT file, it was very hard to make the credits, because we had to search the author’s names everywhere. Finally I would like to say thanks to PlanetPhillip for giving us an opportunity to be interviewed.

Yoguih Besides a big thanks to the community and PlanetPhillip for this interview? Nope.

Update Added: 16 April 2007

Can you please tell me you name and you position on the team?
Darkscale: Hi, my name is Darkscale, aka Darkscale. I’m the webmaster of UnderHell’s website, and level designer.

Have you encountered any challenges being a webmaster for this mod?
Darkscale: Well, this website was a good experience for me, the first version was not bad, but was not exactly what we needed, we needed an interactive website, where each member of the team could add his news, modify pages ect.. But after some time, everything was ready, and the new version of the website is exactly what we wanted, a bilingual website (En/Fr) for a greater community, and an easy administration where each member of the team can add his piece of work

As a mapper, what can you say about the levels?
Darkscale: As you might have guessed, our mod will be horror based, the levels will be kind of dark, spooky, and stressing; but that won’t be all of it! Underhell is full of surprises; one of our main goal is to give the player a mod which is different at each party. Each time the player will start a new game, he will re discover the level, even if he already played it before. Let me explain, the NPCS will not always be at the same place, their spawns will change randomly, to add the element of surprise to the player even if he replays the mod.

Can you tell us more about the Ghost?
Darkscale: Ah, the ghost, don’t you think it’s very used in nowadays games and mods? Anyways, I will leave this mystery for the player to discover it by himself.

What can you say about the prison, and what about all the enemies?
Darkscale: The jail you could observe in the Trailer 1 of Underhell is the starting point of the real adventure, the part which takes place in the city in the beginning, is the prologue; as you might have seen, weird things are happening in there…I will say no more, but do not trust appearances, this jail could hide a much bigger thing…

Thank you very much, is there anything you would like to say to the community?
Darkscale: I would like to thank PlanetPhillip for this interview, and to thank the whole community for supporting the mod!