The Climbox

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The Climbox

Postby beach on Wed Jun 04, 2014 3:53 pm

Hi there !
I'm glad to show you my very small map/mod. I released it after a month but the project was initialy created in a Game Jam event in belgium ( it's where I live for school, but i'm from france )
The subject of the event was "Duel".
So, just kill everyone on your way to the roof and avoid death :smt045

Screenshots :
Image
Image

Download :
http://www.moddb.com/mods/half-life-climbox/downloads/climbox-10


If i post my mod here it's because I want some feedback. Why ? Because i'm begining another project much more serious and ambitious, so i want to avoid making the same error both time.

I really thank those who are going to try my miniMod :D It just takes few minutes

Have a great day/night/morning/evening
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beach
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Re: The Climbox

Postby Riomaki on Thu Jun 05, 2014 6:25 pm

Here's my feedback. I played on Normal difficulty.

Mod packaging:
- Make sure you remove the /save and /screenshots folders. Users don't need either of those. You should also remove the /bin and /gfx folders.
- Remove cfg/config.cfg.
- Clear out the .ain files in maps/graphs for maps that are no longer in the mod.
- You can remove Achievements from the main menu if your mod doesn't use them. Open up resource/gamemenu.res and remove the section "8" (the one containing OpenAchievementsDialog.
- You can edit the xpos/ypos settings in resources/GameLogo.res to better center your title screen text.
- While you were correct to create a resource/duel_english.txt file, the names are wrong for the default Half-Life 2 entries. You want to leave these as they are in the Half-Life 2 English file (i.e. HL2_Crowbar). As it stands, it reads as "duel_Crowbar" when you do a weapon switch.
- Ideally, the name of your mod should match its Steam name (i.e. it should be Climbox, not Duel).

Gameplay:
- The intro cinematic should be accompanied by footsteps or something to make the player feel like they are part of the world instead of gliding along like a ghost. Opening the door instead of squeezing through it would help as well. Or just not having the intro cinematic at all.
- I think the Unreal Tournament-style pick-ups don't fit the Half-Life 2 universe at all, but I can accept it as a author choice.
- Across the board, the way this level unravels feels very random. There is no rhyme or reason to when doors open or enemies arrive. You frequently backtrack to previous areas only to find doors have mysteriously opened, allowing you to reach new places. This is something you should avoid.
- You shouldn't put steam behind the basement corridor with the Heart and CASTE graffiti if the player can't interact with that area.
- Killing the Hunter with such limited ammo could be very difficult on Hard.
- You can break windows and see rebels standing outside doing nothing. These windows look wide enough to jump through, but you can't.
- The Combine forcefield you disable by pulling the plug sits beside a large opening that is a solid window, but it's hard to tell this from the stairway. I tried to throw a grenade through there only to have it bounce back at me. It needs to be more clearly defined as a window.
- Next to this forcefield is a chute you have to punt open with the Gravity Gun. This is not called out very well and the fact that it takes multiple punts to open, with no player feedback, makes it confusing.

Final battle:
- The final battle is ridiculously difficult. As you know, it exists in three stages.
- The first stage, with the Combine gunner, is difficult to hit. While it is possible to throw Grenades up there, you also littered the area with explosive barrels for gravgunning. Unfortunately, these rarely hit the gunner. They should either by removed, or be given more leeway.
- For the second stage, the Strider, the perimeter fence is an obnoxious obstacle for both you and the Strider. You basically have to wait for the Strider to march to the one gap in the fence you can reliably fire rockets through, and once it gets there, it stands around getting hit, which looks unrealistic. Using a shorter fence would be better for gameplay. Also, presumably if you don't kill it in time, the Strider destroys the only health pick-up and cover on the roof, which is bad for what follows next.
- Stage three, a Combine Gunship. Totally unnecessary. There's now no health or cover on the roof and only a handful of rockets inside the building. As a result, the player won't want to stray from the infinite rocket crate on the roof. It's unclear what options the player has at this point. I found nothing useful inside the building and the Gunship would sap my health to almost nothing in one or two volleys with no way to restore it, other than backtracking all the way to the basement.
- Leading up to the roof at the ladder where the Fast Zombie comes down, there's a clear invisible wall around the edges on something the player could normally jump over.

Visuals:
- On the whole, the map looks pretty good. You get a lot of little details right, like the TV cutting out when you pull it from the wall or stashing grenades in the kitchen shelves. Textures clearly differentiate one area from the next.
- The surrounding buildings could stand to be more detailed - roof lines would go a long way. The screenshot in your post shows a great deal of depth in your skybox, but the surrounding buildings are a bit too tall to show it off in-game.
- The custom wooden banisters on the stairs render incorrectly and their flatness is very apparent. You'd be better off using the metal texture you used on the other banisters.
- The area housing the infinite rocket crate looks unrealistic. It's basically a 3 foot long garage.

Technical issues:
- The garage doors in the basement make opening noises if the player interacts with them.
- The aforementioned Combine forcefield doesn't make a sound when you get near it and has the wrong texture applied to it.
- The mod doesn't kick the user back to the title screen on ending. Use a point_clientcommand entity and give it the input Command with the parameter startupmenu force.
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Re: The Climbox

Postby beach on Thu Jun 05, 2014 8:10 pm

first, I really thank you for taking time !
Mod packaging:
- Make sure you remove the /save and /screenshots folders. Users don't need either of those. You should also remove the /bin and /gfx folders.
[.......]
- Ideally, the name of your mod should match its Steam name (i.e. it should be Climbox, not Duel).


Thanks for remind me all the steps precisely !

- I think the Unreal Tournament-style pick-ups don't fit the Half-Life 2 universe at all, but I can accept it as a author choice.

I totally agree but as you said it's an "author choise" made during the GameJam. ( subject -> duel )
In fact, i think it looks more "Arcade style" which it's totally the point ;)

- Across the board, the way this level unravels feels very random. There is no rhyme [...] . This is something you should avoid.

I also agree, actualy something happen when you kill someone, it's something you have to know before, i suppose... Duel after duel

- You shouldn't put steam behind the basement corridor with the Heart and CASTE graffiti if the player can't interact with that area.

I don't see why.. why ?

- Killing the Hunter with such limited ammo could be very difficult on Hard.

Yes it is :)

- The Combine forcefield you disable by pulling the plug sits beside a large opening that is a solid window, but it's hard to tell this from the stairway. I tried to throw a grenade through there only to have it bounce back at me. It needs to be more clearly defined as a window.
- Next to this forcefield is a chute you have to punt open with the Gravity Gun. This is not called out very well and the fact that it takes multiple punts to open, with no player feedback, makes it confusing.


This area isn't clear enough, i know. I realize that when i let some friends play it without any hint :)

- The final battle is ridiculously difficult. As you know, it exists in three stages.

I think ridisculously is the perfect adjective :)

- The first stage, with the Combine gunner, is difficult to hit. While it is possible to throw Grenades up there, you also littered the area with explosive barrels for gravgunning. Unfortunately, these rarely hit the gunner. They should either by removed, or be given more leeway.

For the first time, i don't agree. You have plenty way to kill him and if you aim right you can kill him with one barrel.

- For the second stage, the Strider, the perimeter fence is an obnoxious obstacle for both you and the Strider. You basically have to wait for the Strider to march to the one gap in the fence you can reliably fire rockets through, and once it gets there, it stands around getting hit, which looks unrealistic. Using a shorter fence would be better for gameplay.

You have to use the "point aiming" of the rpg to kill him. But i agree it's hard if you're not an expert of the Rocket launcher ;)

Also, presumably if you don't kill it in time, the Strider destroys the only health pick-up and cover on the roof, which is bad for what follows next.

Just a way to force the player being faster and more accurate. Maybe a bad idea

- Stage three, a Combine Gunship. Totally unnecessary. There's now no health or cover on the roof and only a handful of rockets inside the building. As a result, the player won't want to stray from the infinite rocket crate on the roof. It's unclear what options the player has at this point. I found nothing useful inside the building and the Gunship would sap my health to almost nothing in one or two volleys with no way to restore it, other than backtracking all the way to the basement.

Unnecessary ? Maybe. Of course if you are not fast enough you have no health left on the roof but i think you have forgot the health near the TVDeadBodyRoom. Once again i agree with you.

- The area housing the infinite rocket crate looks unrealistic. It's basically a 3 foot long garage.

Hahah ! Yes it is ^^ The whole map isn't realistic. It's incoherent as hell.. ( no preproduction )

- On the whole, the map looks pretty good. You get a lot of little details right, like the TV cutting out when you pull it from the wall or stashing grenades in the kitchen shelves. Textures clearly differentiate one area from the next.

Thanks !

- The custom wooden banisters on the stairs render incorrectly and their flatness is very apparent. You'd be better off using the metal texture you used on the other banisters.

I will !

- The mod doesn't kick the user back to the title screen on ending. Use a point_clientcommand entity and give it the input Command with the parameter startupmenu force.

Thanks for this ! I I tried game_end but it was for MP so i assume that everybody will press echap, was i wrong ?

Thanks again ! I do not know if i will fix everything and make an 1.1 version cause i'm already on something else, something real ( Climbox is just a quick project, there is not enough love put into it.. :) )

(English isn't my mother tongue, so if i write bad i'm sorry :| )
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Re: The Climbox

Postby Riomaki on Fri Jun 06, 2014 4:16 pm

Because of the way Valve used it, Half-Life 2 players are trained to believe that steam is both damaging and is often used as a puzzle mechanic (i.e. turn on hot gas, shoot the vapors to explode something). So when you put the steam behind a fence like that, it looks like you intend to have the player go back there at some point.

The exploding barrels on the Combine gunner can kill him - I got him the first time I tried - but it's not very consistent. If the barrel just barely touches the side of his cover, it explodes and the sphere of damage will not reach him because it is "blocked" by the cover, even though visually, it looks like it should have damaged him. That's why I suggest disconnecting the visuals from the actual collision here - have the collision for his cover be a bit lower than the actual model. The player won't be able to tell from this angle anyway.

The rest of the boss, from my perspective, is too hard. And it doesn't really fall in line with the rest of the level's easy difficulty because you basically spring one enemy on the player at a time and they don't pose a major threat (Hunter aside). Then you blast them with this one-two boss knockout that kind of comes from nowhere. :lol:

Most people expect a map to return to the title screen after a fade to black or credits.

A couple other things I just remembered:
- You'll want to put an env_wind in your map somewhere if you're going to use func_duncmotes. That way, the dust wafts around instead of doing that strange up-and-down motion. A lot of mappers forget this.

- When I killed the Gunship after cheating, it landed against the building and kept exploding. It never actually blew up. One thing you should consider is calling SelfDestruct on the Gunship at some point after its death. I know that on the Hunter-Chopper, you need to call SelfDestruct to get it flying to the crash target and SelfDestruct again once it gets there. If it fails to reach the crash target, it will perpetually sit there exploding but never actually break itself into pieces. I don't have experience with the Gunship, but I would suggest calling a logic_relay OnDeath of the Gunship and having it call SelfDestruct twice, maybe 2-3 seconds apart, just to make sure the Gunship dies.

Your English is fine. :smt023
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Re: The Climbox

Postby beach on Fri Jun 06, 2014 4:40 pm

For the gunship, i know how to solve the issue ... But to be honest i forget it before the release. info_targetgunshipcrash (not the exact name ).
I put it on the wrong place so sometimes it get stuck...
I had an env_wind on my skybox 3d for the smoke but i delete it to use a func_wind cause it was strange to have hard wind inside.. Is there a way to limit the env_wind to some entities ?
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Re: The Climbox

Postby Riomaki on Fri Jun 06, 2014 5:28 pm

I don't think so. Env_wind basically hits cables and dustmotes and probably a few other particle effects too. You can set its values pretty low - in particular the "gust" values - to make it look decent inside. You can also probably turn it on or off if you want to.

Never heard of func_wind.

The thing about the gunshipcrash target is that the Gunship could get stuck even if you put it in the right place. The player could kill it in a weird spot, for example. That's why you want to have that SelfDestruct safeguard in there, in case it doesn't make it.

From what I recall, the Nova Prospekt battle with the Gunships - which ends with a Gunship breaking a wall when it crashes - relied on a gunshipcrash to get the Gunship near the wall. However, it was a large trigger near the gunshipcrash that actually destroyed the wall and fired the second SelfDestruct. This was probably because the likelihood of the Gunship making it to that exact point wasn't reliable compared to detecting if it was in the general area. In case the Gunship didn't make it there for some reason, they had another SelfDestruct ready to go on a delay of 8 seconds or so.
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Re: The Climbox

Postby beach on Fri Jun 06, 2014 6:03 pm

It's good to know, thanks. In the future i'll use this for the gunship crash.

Never heard of func_wind.


Apologies, it's trigger_wind however it's like the env_wind but in a precise area.
So yeah obviously i can use the env_wind to produec soft wind and a trigger_wind to create hard wind for the skybox.

From what I recall, the Nova Prospekt battle with the Gunships - which ends with a Gunship breaking a wall when it crashes

You just learn me this, i did Half life 2 a lot of time ( since the first version with the glitched steam ) and i never saw this.. But yeah I remember the gunship ( actually two gunships ) near the NovaProspekt entrance.
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