News posts

I stumbled upon this great Gamasutra interview with Valve writers Marc Laidlaw & Eric Wolpaw. It's really insightful stuff about how Valve goes about their creative process.

Gamasutra said:
But we were still fishing around, thinking that this would be announcements coming over the facility's speakers, and there was still going to be something else, like the villain, or somebody to interact with. It quickly became apparent that people were reacting to this voice. It may be a trivial realization, but it was a big realization for us. "Whoa, this voice is just the facility that's angry at you and will confront you at the end."

Read more here

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Our 2009 mini-competition has finally come to a close, but we still have to decide on a winner! Check out the entries and vote for your favorite! There's a prize at stake here, so let's put it in the right hands!

We had some excellent entries and it's going to be a hard one, so help us decide which one you think is most deserving. Voting will be open until November 3rd.

Good luck to all who entered!

Our mini-competition of 2009 is underway. A mini-competition is one that lasts for two weeks and does not require a full-blown well-rounded map to be qualified. This time, all we're looking for are stunning visuals and sounds. No need to worry about optimization, or gameplay; we just want something pretty to look at! But of course, it needs to be able to load up in-game, -that's it!

Our theme is Ancient vs. Futuristic. Use your creative wit to make a vista scene that's fun or fascinating to look at that reflects this theme somehow.

Check out the guidelines thread for more info!

We're taking suggestions for our next upcoming mapping mini-competition. We would like to get as many people involved as possible, so if you or someone you know might be interested, we ask that you take the time to register and come make a post in the forums! We'd like to get a tally on how many participants we may have.

We encourage you to make any suggestions regarding rules or themes. You can reach the updated post in the thread here.

Note: This is not the start of the competition, but merely a forum to discuss ideas for it. The competition thread will be starting in the following weeks to come. So get ready!

P.S. Don't mind the Poll.

tf2maps.net is hosting another mapping competition, but this time, they're providing you with all the content!

They aren't asking for a full map, instead they're looking for a 2048x2048 scene that incorporates the custom content they provide. If you're looking for a quick way to get into mapping for TF2, then this is your chance! Entries are due August 25th; better late than never.

Check out the rules here.

In what could be called one of the best single-player mods in the advent of Black Mesa, comes Research & Development. An hour long puzzle mod that has the player traversing an immense Combine-infested research facility without a weapon. Sound boring? -Not in the least bit. I had the opportunity to help playtest this mod myself, and the amount of polish and new gameplay conceived here is astounding. This mod will keep you on your toes the entire length and will reward you with new and exciting ways to navigate your surroundings. Truly a mod that will go down alongside the ranks of Minerva. Yes, it's that good.

Here are some links to help get you started:
Mod DB Profile
Interlopers Thread
File Front DL

And as always, you can follow up with any comments in the thread started up here.

And so it continues... I've finally managed to make headway with a part of the SnarkPit Compilation Map. You can read about it in the forums here.

If you'd like to download it straight-away, you can grab that here.

Be sure to comment on any bugs you may come across! -This is a community-made map after all!

-Riven

We never make front page posts about mods or individual maps, but this one certainly stood out from the crowd in my opinion and deserves to be recognized.

Polaris is a super short mod for Half-Life 2, Episode 2 made by Campaignjunkie that tries something a little different. There are no weapons, and you can't crouch or even jump; its a different animal all together. I can't really say anything without giving away too much, so I encourage all who might be just a little intrigued to go check it out here.

Also, if you want to join in on the discussion started in the forums, you can find that here.

Happy gaming!
-Riven

The Left 4 Dead SDK is now fully released, it should update automatically if you had already installed the 'L4D Authoring Tools Beta'. To get the full details of the update read the L4D blog post about it here. There are already a few good L4D custom levels out there up for download, including this one posted over at Interlopers. Also check out some of the new sites started up around L4D meant to catalog all the new content being created for it!

• L4D Mods.com
• L4D Maps.com

Mapping for Source keeps getting better and better! It must be impossible for a mapper not to have any inspiration these days!