[Release] Depot

[LexxoR]

Depot is a mod inspired by VALVe's book "Raising the Bar" and concept-arts. This is redesigned part of Half-Life 2 levels - coastline and prison, but now it's a bit closer to old atmosphere of a dead, dried by Combine, world.

Player find himself in a wasteland, on a floor of a dried sea,and tried to find a way to island, where was a prison, and now - Combine Depot.





MODDB Profile page - http://www.moddb.com/mods/depot

Download - http://www.moddb.com/mods/depot/downloads

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

[joe_rogers_11155]

downloading, looking forward to this!!

[Ark11]

Downloading also, this looks really good.

[srredfire]

Alright, so I just finished it.

- SPOILZ -

I think Depot probably started out as fun little idea, using some beta concept art as a starting point, and rolling with it. I myself am a HUGE fan of the Half-Life 2 Beta and anything related to it, so because this mod was related to it, I was interested in it and downloaded it.

Aesthetically, while not the most impressive, Depot is not a bad looking mod, in fact there are one or two moments which are rather cool looking. The place where Depot fails in, is gameplay, and it fails BADLY.

Literally two minutes in, I had no idea what the FUCK I was doing, like, AT ALL. Luckily Ark was online, and either he figured it out himself, or from someone else, what to do.

You start off facing the task of getting though a giant beached submarine. My first thought was to just go around it, as it looked like you could. Turns out, you actually CAN, you're just not supposed to. So I turn back around knowing, or rather hoping, that you shouldn't go that way since you clip through some of the submarine models. I fuck around for a few minutes until Ark informs me that you have to use your gravity gun and aim up into the dark corners of the submarine and hold Mouse 1 until you happen to hit a loose piece of metal resembling a ramp that falls down, allowing you to scale inside of the submarine.

How the FUCKKKKKKKK was I supposed to even figure this out?! I feel like this is an extremely common case of the mapper knowing what to do, and then of course assumes the player will know what to do because the mapper made it and thinks, "oh yeah dude, this totally makes sense!" but in practice it SUCKS. A LOT.

This theme carries on within the submarine. It's completely pitch black inside, which I didn't mind, it made for a bit of a spooky atmosphere inside this abandoned rusty hunk of metal, but because of how the puzzles and gameplay the follow carried out, it instantly cripples you. It's easy to get lost, despite the limited number of hallways, and it's very easy to miss the sections you need to go through.

You come up to a tank or something of some sort at one point, and despite your best efforts, you will not move it no matter what you do. In fact, you're not supposed to even be there yet, well, at least not attempt to move forward through that area yet. Amongst the shadowed, blended hallways there is a corridor off to the side of the path you most likely took that is very easily missed. This takes you below said tank and you're confronted with another puzzle! I knew what had to be done here, but it's the problem of finding the "sweet spot" to hit.

Eventually after firing my gravity gun everywhere, including the spot which looked extremely obvious, I managed to loosen some metal chunks and break the tank on the upper floor loose. You travel back up, go through the next hallway, get lost some more, and eventually you'll find yourself outside.

Beyond this point the game gets a LITTLE less confusing, thankfully, but there are some points which still become a bit baffling.

The rest of the gameplay is mainly focused around finding the right path to take, which isn't always blatantly obvious, as I think the submarine serves to be a lesson of that. A lot of the scenery blends together and there's no real linear flow between where you're supposed to go and where you aren't.

With two levels, Depot is a short mod, but will probably take you longer than you hope because of it's apparent problems.

It was a very good attempt and there are some well done moments, and well done moments that could have been well done moments but weren't because of either lack of testing, assumptions, or just overall carelessness.

As a game I unfortunately cannot recommend to play it, with it's glaring issues and lack of proper teachings or guidance, it just becomes a convoluted spaghetti rodeo mess in your face and you wonder how to wiggle through it.

However if this gameplay issues were fixed, it could be an "alright" mod and would be a quick 30 minute time killer.

Ok thanks!

[Armageddon]

Ignore what Spencer said, this mod has chain physics, it makes the entire thing a masterpiece.

[Smurftyours]

Ignore what Armageddon said, this mod has not been recommended by Spencer, that makes the entire thing a not alright mod.

[Ark11]

The mod had potential, visually it was very nice. But the gameplay was frustratingly difficult, whole time it seemed to me like this mod was not playtested by anyone other than yourself.

[joe_rogers_11155]

Before I begin nit-picking, I have to say that this is an extremely impressive piece of work. I will be playing it again a few times over, just to get my own mapping inspiration levels up. Once the gameplay issues are fixed (ie increased intuitiveness and/or teaching the game mechanics) then it will be perfect. The tone set by the landscape screams of vanilla Half-Life 2, which is the greatest compliment I can think of for this mod.

I think the submarine navigation can be modified thusly:

1. Entry to Submarine: Not intuitive at all, especially since we start with guns. I did not feel inclined to pull out the gravity gun until I had already clipped through the submarine's outer shell and gotten confused about entry. I recommend you make a loud creaking sound around the place where the player must pull the metal out of the submarine's entrance ramp. Or make add a piece of "ragdoll" metal chain to it to draw attention upwards. Finally, if all else fails, add the GUI "hint text" that reminds players how to use the gravity gun. (Alternatively, add a short segment before finding the submarine where the player must obviously use the gravity gun to proceed.)

2. Submarine doors: Again, not intuitive to me that some doors can be punted with the gravity gun. I ended up using "mat_wireframe 1" to x-ray the submarine, that's how I saw the skeletons and knew there was a path to be found elsewhere. Perhaps set up an early first metal door is already off the hinges, but leaning up against the doorway blocking the path. The player will intuitively punt the door out of the way with the gravity gun. Other doors could be less intuitively hanging off the hinges, or slightly leaning inward.

3. Submarine physics puzzle: Just give us a slightly more visible "sweet spot" so we don't go punting around in the basement feeling stupid.

One final thing about after the submarine: One of your rock models has "invisible wall syndrome" where the model clips in unusual places. It made me die more than once while trying to hop from rock to rock. Please fix it in your update!!

For now, that concludes my analysis. I think all other parts of the first map were executed extremely well. Again, great work!!

[LexxoR]

Thanks for posting your opinions guys, it's very interesting!

[srredfire]

This was the most impressive part of the mod because it showed the scale of it, and it was a cool feature seeing where you had come from in the beginning. Also the shit in the background was nice.

[Pink Panther]

I echo what others have said, the gameplay needs work.

First, I have to praise the incredible job you have done with the scenery, both in and outside of the prison. The seafloor, the beached sub hull, oil tanker, battleship (?) and active volcano in the distance were awesome little additions that made the whole scene feel awe-inspiring.

Gameplay/Spoiler critique below

The sub needs better tutoring for players, as I also did not know that doors could be punted until my gravity gun started chirping and buzzing - I thought that the barrel at the beginning might've been the key to getting through blocked holes or vertical spots.

The exit of the sub honestly had me the most confused, once outside I did not see the tunnel in the side of the cliff and kept trying to make it to the ground floor, only to be killed by a trigger_hurt. There were a few clipping problems on the right side (player's perspecitve) of the sub hull when exiting to, I started to glide along the edge of the sea cliff.

I don't have any suggestions about how to more clearly guide the player, I found myself running and gunning trying to find a way up the cliffs, only to have the floor beneath me cave in and then I started running from an Antlion Guardian. Fighting it was a LOT of fun once I realized what my weapon was, but the pulley puzzle wasn't very well implemented because antlions would slide off it and I'd keep throwing bait up there. Also, the winch or motor connected via rope was misleading, I thought it was some sort of sea-saw puzzle and kept trying to punt it out and around the edge of the fishing trawler.

Just make better visual clues for the player, teach them what works and how, and have hints sending them in the right direction. I could see this mod being a lot of fun with improvements and the next chapter. You've nailed the aesthetics, now just refine the gameplay and player direction.

I look forward to more!

[joe_rogers_11155]

i made a video walkthrough of sorts. i dont have a well-functioning mic, so you can ad-lib your own commentary.

[LexxoR]

i made a video walkthrough of sorts. i dont have a well-functioning mic, so you can ad-lib your own commentary.

Brilliant video! This is first time you playing the mod?

[joe_rogers_11155]

This video represents my 2nd time playing the mod.

[LexxoR]

Can you write a little review about mod - what's you like, what's not, etc? I'll be appreciate for this