[map] sp_balcony

This is a a discussion topic for the map "sp_balcony" by reaper47 which can be found here

Map description:

This was my entry to the "DM2SP" competition. It is based on my HL2DM map "dm_balcony".

In this short rescue mission, you have to help Uriah, a Vortigaunt scientist, escape from a combine prison by guiding him to a teleporter. I had to use some entity hacks to get him to follow the player. You can command Uriah to stop or continue following you by pressing the use key on him (classic HL1 mode).

For the finale, you can use a bunch of friendly roller mines to set up a defense. Remember, the only way to destroy roller mines are explosives, to think twice before using grenades...

Map screenshots:

Put my thoughts here.

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Aaron's Stuff

nice, looking forward to playin' this, gotta find that old hl2 cd though or wait for the mega DL....

Ah, I played it earlier yesterday, and all I have to say is that you did a really great job porting this into SP. I don't remember if there were any big bugs that I noticed, but it did crash on me once at about 2 minutes into it. I restarted it and it ran fine from there. Although, it could have been the fact I was running HL2 in 64-bit mode (which I hear is a little on the buggy side). Nevertheless, I was able to get through it all with no problem. It was very intense and just the right amount of combat I think.

I recorded demos of my playthrough, if you think they might help you better the map. The first demo ends where the game crashed on me. I uploaded them here.

Anyhow, very nice map indeed! -Did you work on this the full amount of time given?

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

I wasn't sure how the maps entered into this content would turnout but yours surely was a success! The beginning was a little strange and I wasn't sure where to be going but once things heated up it was really quite nice.

The main things I really liked about it were aesthetic though . The lighting and geometry were very well done IMO, the purple haze was brilliant and the the break away from the standard 45-90 degree edges was very well executed - especially in that nice little alleyway.

All up, a very nice little map, I had good fun playing it and passed you 5 stars as well cause I'm a nice guy. Ending was splendid too.

Looks like I need to get back into sp mapping again....

Well thanks for the feedback, everybody! Riven, I love seeing demos, thanks for the recording.

I surely didn't work on this the full amount of time, but tweaking the entity work was harder than I imagined! In the end, I started just throwing a bunch of enemies into the map, then abandoned it for a few weeks not sure how it will turn out, but eventually finished it in quite an intense 2 week marathon. But it's a joy, still, to work on top of finished geometry... gives you time to experiment with the rest.

Thank you very much for making this, I owe you 15 minutes of entertainment time

It was fun although I had a hard time translating the gameplay from DM mode, as this is so familiar to me that way. Kept looking for health where there wasn't any etc.

This almost suits teh SP gameplay mode better though as the speed is quite a bit slower, and the layout lends itself nicely to hide and seek sniping stuff.

All the additions you made look great in the map too. I never actually got onto the roof as youll see in the demo I made:

http://www.filefront.com/14225371/sp_balcony_haymaker.dem/

I made a mistake and played it on 'easy' it seems, the combine were easy to drop. My bad, Ill try it on hard. I forgot to even look for roller mines as I was kinda camping the top landing there.

Top shelf job given the deadline! LOL my "script" for ideas I had for mine was getting up to 500 lines long, so I ditched it. You did a nice job making the entities work for you on short notice.

edit: looks like the record stops after a death so you'll only see half of my fumblings

Hay Reaper. I had a play through. Sorry to say it didn't go to well. I died once and after that the ai was disabled and i couldn't get it to turn back on. restarting steam didn't help. I'll start it over and see if it works all the way through in a day or to. I was having a blast until it happened though.
I recorded it as a demo. Pm me your email or contact me on steam and ill send it to you. (after being compressed it was 11 meg).

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Reality has become a commodity.

Hummm... What's with all the people having problems with "AI disabled"? I had it turned on a couple of times for testing, but how can a console command like this "infect" a BSP file? Not to mention, I didn't have it turned on during the final compile and packratting? Strange...

btw, "ai_disable" in console should turn it on again.

Just played this today - really loved the environment. I think you did an admirable job converting it to a singleplayer map. The hold out at the end was good - good use of space. The Vort was almost a non-entity; but I know it's hard working with allies. I hated that one sniper who kept stinging me - I wanted to kill him!

I especially loved the feeling of being on the rooftops. Great job!

The map is pretty good, about 90% of what was seen was explorable, which is a good thing; there was realism in that sense.

I also liked the fact it was non-linear, but however, it was also confusing. I found myself not knowing where to stand most of the time.

Although I think that it is far too short to be appreciated as much as it should be.

Fucking great map mate. I actually downloaded this from PlanetPhillip, not realising it was from 'Reaper47' who had helped me with my maps in days gone by. When I got out on the rooftops, I thought I had gone somewhere I wasn't intended to, it didn't take long before I realised it was a feature of the map. I am impressed by the forethought that has gone into this nice little extra. I was also pleasantly surprised to find out that the Combine troops can find their way down from the rooftops, that must have been down to good node placement.

I did get an 'ai_disabled' problem with my saved games, but the map was short enough to load it from the start again from which the problem doesn't arise. The amount of enemies and supplies were balanced as well. Architechure of the map was also good looking.

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Just Kidding

Just Kidding