Story
My story takes place in an abandoned combine water processing plant on a bleak coastline.
Gordon's suit has been temporarily disabled due to the malfunction and is stranded near the facility. He must make his way inside to find a way to escape while avoiding the dangers he must face along the way.
Gameplay
Gameplay is mostly going to be stealth and simple puzzle solving with an epic finale. all story takes place inside with only a short outside section for the beginning.
I know its a level design competition but I'll also try making it look as good as possible with what limited time we have.
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Updates
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5/8/14
Here are some WIP screens, I forgot to get rid of the crosshair. Any custom assets have been created since the start of the competition in line with the rules. I prefer working on both assets and level design, in a way it helps me figure out exactly what I really have to make and what I don't, also helps when there are no placeholder props that fit in.
compression causes these pics to look brighter/darker than they really are.
I'm debating the potential use for carefully placed projected textures. I don't know how well they work for non HDR capable users, but If the majority are ok with it then I think I will proceed with using them. There are a few parts in which they will come very in handy. Let me know what you think.
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5/31/14
About 75% through the level design. This map is way too big I might just have to cut it in half or I may never get to properly refine everything before the deadline. If it comes to that then none of the areas in my first update will make it in. Its been really tough trying to do both this and schoolwork, most of these screenshots area areas which I did in about 1-2 days during what free time I had. Honestly I should be done with the entire level and doing my in depth art pass by now.
Chances are I may be hitting the func_detail limit soon and will have to convert a lot of temporary brushwork into models. The file size may be quite large but I've tried to keep the custom stuff to as low as possible reusing stuff as much as possible or hacking around with re purposed default models.
Here's some screen showing some areas later in the level, some still very much in wip. Its been a bit tough trying to come up with a unique setup for each area. I want the combine built areas to have a more sci fi look but still retain combine elements. Let me know if you have any questions or crits.
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6/20/14
Been going through parts of the map fixing many various things and refining the layout and environment interactions. There are some things that definitely wont be completed in time but there's not much I can do about. You may see some parts looking bare or simple / uninteresting. Hopefully the more refined areas can make up for it. Some of the areas in the wip pics above are outdated but are mostly the same. All my time is being devoted towards any scripting and gameplay.
The last room layout was a huge problem for me which is why I left it for the very end to think over . It needed to be very epic and climactic. there was a big clash between looks and play-ability. I eventually decided to sacrifice some game play in favour of looking better since I know what I can do best.
Also since I was running out of time I streamlined model creation by taking apart various other combine models and used basic construction shapes along with parts on a single big texture sheet to create the models you can see in the last room wip picture below. The quality as pretty horrid in some places, but it gets the point across.
[spoilers] This pic is in a link since it is the last room WIP but you can view it if you really want to.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Aj2U ... _10003.jpg
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-XrWx ... _10004.jpg
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6/25/14
Thanks everyone for the support/feedback.
I've played a couple of mods to study how they did things in lieu for this competition and Mission Improbable was by far the best.
Everything in working order. The map is playable and I've got my setup for easy custom vpk installation. Going through some last few edits and tweaking.
Also testing out current build with a few people to catch all the smaller things I might have missed or improve playability where needed.
I feel like some of my entity setups are done wrong, I've never done any linear level design so my knowledge of how exactly things are done this way isn't that broad. I will probably include the vmf on release to get more feedback under the hood.
