The Official Interlopers "Map Pimpage Thread"

[DarkIceJack]

Made some more progress on the next part of the map

[HoliestCows]

Made some more progress on the next part of the map

I like the dark feeling this area gives off, especially the shadows from the ceiling.

On a side note, Aberration, my mod has been released, its still waiting on authorization from moddb so here is a direct link. http://www.gamefront.com/files/21968950 ... _1.0.0.rar

[joe_rogers_11155]

I just played Aberration. My review is posted on Mod DB.

Long story short: I think is was a decent undertaking considering all of the shortcomings I observed. You have some nice brushwork and consistent level design, even if it is a little too straight-lined for my taste. You should consider this release to be a playtest, and just keep working on it. I think there are several ways you can improve. Most importantly (to me), I found it to be unplayable on Hard mode. I ran out of ammo a few times (enemies are beefier on hard mode, requiring more ammo) and I think 16+ soldiers and 2 hunters - all at once, without abundant health kits - is simply too much for Hard mode unless you choreograph the battle. You just dumped a bunch of NPC's into the blender and let them all charge in on the player.

RECOMMENDATIONS:
1. Add better autosaves to all three maps.
2. Increase the amount of ammo found before the first soldier encounter. Playing on Hard Mode, I ran out of ammo several times while fighting the hunter and had to cheat to give myself extra ammo to continue the fight.
3. Increase the amount of health kits in the large arena battle. Facing 16 soldiers is tough enough to merit adding plenty of health kits to run for. Also, it would promote player movement around the arena to escape the attackers.
4. Consider adding more weapons during the arena battle. I would have loved to have more crossbow ammo or a revolver for long-range engagements...especially for the soldiers attacking from the balconies.
5. When I got into the elevator after the arena battle, there were still a bunch of soldiers wandering the catwalks and they suddenly ignored me. They should at least run away after I get on the elevator, or maybe even use the elevator as a way of trapping me for further combat. Shooting at them while riding the elevator without them shooting back or acknowledging me was strange.
6. I think you are borrowing way too much from Nightmare House 2. Sure, the elements used are pretty scary in their own right but there are a few effects that you blatantly ripped from NH2 that I think cannot simply be ignored.
7. The antlion cave were totally useless except as mediocre eye candy. No puzzle, no combat, no storytelling, no nothing. It seems like you could have done something really interesting with that map but got bored with working on the mod and included this cave as a cheap connector of corridors.

[cashed]

start of my season port

[pk_hunter]

Reworked this area a bit. Made it more crumbly and post-disaster.

[Black_Stormy]

I think what makes that reference image design so interesting is that the building goes off to the left and right. Some little alcoves on the right side of that staircase structure would add a lot of visual variety and give the player somewhere to duck into if they get stuck in the open over there. Nice representation in any case.

[nub]

That looks really nice. It's almost hard to believe it's on GoldSRC.

[pk_hunter]

I'm leaning pretty heavily on Goldsource's limits and I don't think I could afford the w_polys of cutting up the far wall. I would have loved to in an ideal world, and It's still a possibility if I can optimise the shit out of it, but because so much of the map is unavoidably visible at any given time, it's very tricky.

Edit:
Thanks, nub. Your post appeared as I was typing!

[jangalomph]

Gave my self a challenge. Do a small map in 1 hour 30 minutes. With only one compile, some errors and what not but hey i think i did pretty good for not mapping in a year.

[nub]

I certainly like where it's going. Do you plan to work on it some more?

[jangalomph]

I'll probably make an entire map out of it if you guys would want me to ^^.

[Gary]

Looks good considering that you only compiled once.


Also, I'm forcing myself to create a full "SP map". Which includes scripted events, NPCs, and gameplay. This is to prove to my self that I can if I want to(I've failed my self many times... so many concepts that never became playable...).

Because I'm lazy, I'm basing it off the HL2 canals:

[LordDz]

Looking forward to it.
Good luck with finishing it tho, that's the hard part.

[Knights]

Looks good considering that you only compiled once.


Also, I'm forcing myself to create a full "SP map". Which includes scripted events, NPCs, and gameplay. This is to prove to my self that I can if I want to(I've failed my self many times... so many concepts that never became playable...).

Because I'm lazy, I'm basing it off the HL2 canals:

Make the sp game where you start at the end of the game with a big boss fight and then end it arriving at the beginning of the game!

[jangalomph]

A few new things were added and fixed. Still deciding whether i'm going to do anything with it.