News posts

Don't you know? Okay, maybe you don't. Who is Mike Morasky? Well, let me answer that with a question to YOU. Have you played either L4D game yet? How about Portal 2? Well, Mike is a bonafide audio engineer and composer for those games. And with the recent release of Portal 2 last Tuesday, Valve introduced a new effect to the music called 'dynamic music;' you may have noticed when you played. Well, Mike will be getting interviewed live by the crew over at Podcast 17 to talk about what 'dynamic music' actually is and answer any listener questions about composing music at Valve.

Interested yet? -How about winning a free Shock Gaming Headset? That's the drawing you get entered into if you submit a question for Mike to answer using a valid e-mail address here You could win it and also get the distinguished honor of actually indirectly talking to a Valve employee, but also you'll get to hear him respond live! -That's gotta count for something, right?

Anyhow, details on how to listen live and when exactly to catch it this Saturday can be found on their special Morasky Page

Oh, and go play Portal 2; it's out now!

If you haven't been following all the buzz lately, Portal 2 is set to come out on April 19 over Steam for the PC & Mac. The Xbox 360 and PS3 will see releases on the 20th and 21st depending on your location. Check the release dates for your country.

Valve today released the beginning of a short comic series to explain the story gap between the first Portal and the new one. We get to see a new character and what appears to be a talking Companion Cube. The next part is set to release on April 11th. Stay tuned!

Also, if you've been out of the loop, Valve released several Aperture advertisement videos featuring the owner of Aperture Science, Cave Johnson. They're quite funny, and help to explain some of those early art pictures from a year ago.

And in case you've also missed it, there is an official Portal 2 blog to keep you on top of everything Portal: here

Is that enough Portal for ya yet? -Probably not.

Well even more stuff underway as I type: a massively complicated Valve ARG (Alternate Reality Game) is being deciphered and pieced together by passionate fans (or by people who like solving puzzles) to discover new information about the game before it's released. You can read all about it here on the dedicated Wiki site: www.valvearg.com

Well it's that time of bi-annual year again. Time to ask for donations.

"But SnarkPit has never asked for donations before?!?!"
-Or have we? Perhaps in more subtle ways, but I feel this is necessary to the survival of the Pit. We use PayPal, so you'll need an account through that if you want to support us.

We'll take whatever you have, and all proceeds go straight to the operation and sustainability of the site. Any amount will do! And best yet, you don't even have to be a member to donate! -Just click the "DONATE NOW" link below and get taken to our donate page.

"Are there any benefits for being a donor?"
You get to have the peace of mind that snarks will not attack you for the next two years. There are no built-in site rewards yet. In the next iteration of the site I promise there will be functional rewards and benefits for donors.

To keep track of the progress, the below donation thermometer will be updated regularly, until it's either paid or until the end of April. Want to talk about it? Please visit the new Donation Thread!

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:

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.

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 ;))

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

Now, why you people bother to get your news from us, I'll never understand. We're hardly reputable, never on-time, and the amount of news that has come out since our last news posting is astounding.

Nevertheless, here's some super big news worthy of immediate action (read: immediate=25 days later).

Game Informer Magazine took a trip to Valve's office to check out what they've been working on. And in this synopsis they published online, they officially announce Valve's next big title in 2011: Defense of the Ancients. If you've ever played Warcraft III, you'd probably know about this mod. It was/is super popular, and a refined sequel was in high-demand. Valve picked up the developer Icefrog and gave him a job working on a better sequel with Source technology. It's been on the rumor mill ever since Valve hired him a year ago. In other words, we saw this coming for a while.

If you have no idea what DotA is, I recommend reading the article on the Game Informer website.

In other older news...

• Beyond Black Mesa Trailer (short indie film)
• Steam surpasses the 30 million mark
• New sticky bombs in the Valve Store
• Gaming Heads release headcrab zombie
• The Sacrifice DLC for L4D 1 & 2 is out
• The rise of Minecraft

So as you can see, lots have happened! (not to mention a bunch of Portal 2 media)

A new initiative by our friends at PlanetPhillip.com for all those looking for a place to send their maps for Beta testing. A short profile is listed for each beta tester along with their availability . You simply pick the ones you'd like to beta test your map, and get in contact! And also if you're interested in becoming a Beta tester, it looks as though you will need to get in contact with Phillip Marlowe himself to donate your time; I imagine it must have been a private communication before this site was launched.

Anyway, I expect this to be a very rich resource for beginning mappers and experienced ones alike. Thanks again Phillip for the contribution to the community!

Lay the fuse and light the match, because the new SnarkPit Mini-Competition has begun!

We're doing things a little bit differently this time around. We're accepting ALL FPS GAMES! You can map for whichever FPS game you can get your hands on (assuming it has a public SDK to make maps with) and submit it. We're also currently taking proposals for judges; no prior competition experience required! If your interested, be sure to check out the official competition thread for more info!

Remember, this is a Mini competition, so don't fret, we're not expecting masterpieces here. We simply want to see the concept realized in whatever state it's in. Yes, we have two categories for which you may submit your map to:

• [b]
• Finished
• Work In Progress (WIP)[/b]

Maps within each category will only be judged against other maps of the same category. We want to see as many entries as possible, so we'll take anything you started, but didn't have time to finish.

So lay back, and enjoy an end-of-the-Summer brief mapping competition to let the worries of the day go by. -That is, if mapping is therapeutic for you too!

Today we're serving quite the selection of competition ideas ready fresh for anyone who wants one. "Mini competitions" are a great way to show your mapping skills or to start mapping by participating in a short two-week goal-oriented level design project.

Mini competitions are meant to be short and relaxed because none of us have time these days to spend hours on hours for months laboring over a hobby that doesn't make us any money. So, for those who want a fun and enjoyable chance to show off their casual level-design work, then now is your chance!

Right now we're mulling over new ideas for a competition and need your feedback. All can join-in on the discussion, and making a comment doesn't commit you to the competition itself, which will start up later; we just want to brainstorm some ideas.

Catch the anchored post through this link here: New Contest Ideas.