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20 Brush Mapping Competition
Mon Jan 17th 2011 at 4:52am by Riven



You can call this a mini competition, but I prefer to call it a "super-mini competition" since you could literally complete a good entry in a few hours. That's the idea behind Snark Pit's new mapping competition. We want to see what you can do with the absolute minimum; flex those mapping muscles! You have a whopping three weeks to complete this one. Judgment will be done through community voting following the deadline, and all maps will be graded on:
  • Aesthetics
  • Layout
  • Use of Brushes
We expect some good entries, so bring 'em on!

All questions, WIP screenshots and comments can be directed towards the coordinator aaron_da_killa in this thread:



Portal 2 News
Thu Jan 6th 2011 at 11:59pm by Riven



This week, Valve released the HD box art for the new Portal 2 game, slated for release this April (week of the 18th). You can check them out for all the consoles below:
(WARNING: Very high-res images)




Also recently today, Valve showed a new feature of the Portal gun in Portal 2 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It's a re-imagining of the "Physgun" (the one you've seen used in Garry's Mod). Originally shown by Valve for the Half-Life 2 tech demo at E3 2003, Valve has now re-purposed it for Portal 2 and given it some new abilities! Watch the video on YouTube to see for yourself!

Also, we are continuing our Snark Pit Interview Series and you may now find the rest of them properly in our articles section. we'd like to keep them under our front page spotlight, but that leaves little room for other front page items. So, to keep them all on the front page, you may see a full list of them listed below. This will be updated along with the rest of the site as new ones get added. There are still plenty to come!









Remember, if you too are interested in giving an interview, please check out our interview questions and criteria here.


Holiday Interviews
Sat Dec 25th 2010 at 3:42pm by Riven



As part of all that is benevolent and good here on the Pit, we have decided to conduct community interviews about level design. And so as not to allow just anyone in, we have a few criteria: 1): you must have been mapping for at least two years, or regularly critiquing/reviewing others' maps for the same time. 2): You must have around 2-4 images to show for it, or a link to images from a portfolio, so that we may post those images along side your interview.

That's it! It does not matter which level design program you have worked with, nor for which game either. We're looking for amateurs and professionals alike! You do not need to be a SnarkPit member either.

Visit this forum thread to find out what the questions are and how you can submit them! Each interview will be posted as an article here on the Pit.

In other news, Valve is having a massive Steam-wide holiday sale. They have some really good package deals, especially for the indie games; it runs between Dec. 20 - Jan. 2. They update every 24 hours I believe with daily deals on big games (I've seen over -85% taken off) and are putting over 1,000+ games on sale. Check the Steam store within Steam to get the full advantage.

Also, as shown above, Valve updated their Aperture Science Holiday vault since they first showed it three years ago. It now features the new WCCs and a Christmas tree with pivot cubes as decorations. So, that should definitely hold you over until the April release of Portal 2 (It was delayed from its February release, FYI smiley)

And last but not least, I hope you guys are enjoying our annual holiday snarks floating from above like whimsical snow flakes. If you have an account on the Pit and don't care for them, you can turn them off in your account by visiting your control panel, and within the "edit profile" link, you should see "enable Christmas snarks" check box under your preferences pane.

Happy Holidays from The Snark Pit smiley smiley


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