Well, I was born in Lafayette, but live in Sulphur (just west of Lake Charles). Will be moving to Ruston for college though. I'm told Lake Charles has the better food. I don't consider myself a coonass, but I have plenty of relatives that are.

I'll try to record a demo when I get home, but it won't be of my first time; but to answer your immediate questions:

-I fought the antlion guard around the north turret post, so that it couldn't get me. Pretty much played "ring around the rosy." I realized I could operate the gun from a really far unreasonable distance from behind! So I went ahead and took advantage of that. I suppose it was cheating in a way.

-I did find the ar2, but didn't use it much though.

-Yea, the decal was weird, and <spoiler>the zombie freaked me out</spoiler>, -good one.

It boiled down to a choice between Fingers action, and Rivens progression of story. Both maps are winners, but it was Fingers more thorough use of the actual base map that was the deciding factor for me, so he got my vote.

I'd love to see both maps combined though. Maybe a compo for the best buggy ride would be a good way to do that. (hint, hint)

Finger, I was hiding in the vents with everybody else, I got he AR, and do you mean the big YOU WIN decal?

@ Yak_Fighter, you're right. Making a map like mine for this competition simply won't work because relying on story and expecting someone else to pick it up would become a bit troublesome. I don't think the interpretation of the given story would be the problem, but the change of given story to different stories developed by that mapper. Others wishing to incorporate their own story would change too many things up, and their would be no coherent story at all through the course of the compilation. I did not think about this whatsoever, excuse my lack of forethought, and selfishness for being so narrow-minded.

A competition like this needs to be pretty generalized as each map should be able to contain within itself a short adventure from beginning to end with a climax left open for anyone to pick up from any perspective. Obviously, some challenges would be for the mapper to keep the same setting, or figure a way to make a nice transition from map to map, but the level would need to be contained within itself.

This brings up several problems though:

What would the challenge be if people didn't have to worry about story? I know their following the HL2 universal story, but particular events contained from map to map would not create any new themes for single player adventure. The player wouldn't know why their traveling from place to place. Monsters would get heavier simply because it was close to the end of the level, not for any particular purpose other than gameplay, it would become very monotonous.

All I'm saying is: figuring out story and purpose should be part of the challenge for creativity!

gets to where the white combine soldier says "Move it!" (pretty much after i get put in prison).

combine_executioner1: unknown scripted sequence "walk"

then it goes no further, so im guessing it doesn't work with ep1

Sorry it doesn't work with Ep1 " SRC="images/smiles/sad.gif"> You should buy hl2 though - it's a great game.

Thanks for all the feedback on the map - nice to know how people played it. A couple of people stated that it might not be a good start for the series, because it jumps right into some pretty intense combat, and gives you a few major weapons right off the bat. I'll give you my thoughts on that.

- I think it's better to start something like this off with a bang. People have played enough hl2 to understand the world, weapons, etc, therefore we don't really have to train people as much, and can start out with a little more action and challenge.

- The intensity doesn't have to remain this high. Movies do this all the time; starting out with an action sequence to hook people, then slowing down a bit to introduce the story. This tale could do the same. Who knows where you travel after the train station? Maybe you wander into a creepy zombie infested town like Ravenholm, or find some hidden combine portal that takes you back to Xen from HL1. Anything could happen.

- Weapons? You can control the ammo to sculpt the combat. We've all played HL2 and I'm not really interested in starting out with a pea-shooter once more. Let's give people some real combat tools and throw a real challenge at them. Also, I REALLY wanted to give the gravity gun, because it IS HL2 combat, and almost all singleplayer mods I've played leave it out. It's a great puzzle tool and just damn fun.

- As as general point, I think we will be way more successful if we keep things as much in the HL universe as possible, working with the assetts available. Riven did a great job with his vcd's, but that's probably as far as someone can take it without biting off more than they can handle in a 2 week challenge cycle. It's hard enough to simply script and tune a small singleplayer level in 2 weeks (well, if you work full time like I do). Also, there's still a lot of potential for creativity even within this limited palette.