The Rabbit's WIP Thread

[The_Rabbit42]

The canal broke.
The water rushed in, displacing the masses already huddled in terror from their benefactors.
On this red letter day, one wrong turn leads you to…

The Flooded District
An area of City 17 where the combine's expansive destruction has broken through the city's canal, flooding a low-lying section of the city and even further displacing some of the city's downtrodden. But the Overwatch still has a presence here, and Gordon needs to get back on track towards Black Mesa East.



Developer Notes
Inspired by the identically-titled Dishonored chapter, I think this environment and water-damaged aesthetic could offer some interesting gameplay for Half-Life, even after all that water the game has seen. I'm going to try my best to keep up with this, though it would be unsurprising if it fell behind amongst my many other personal projects. We'll see!

[Smurftyours]

You should read the rules of the competition. Steve strongly suggested that players should not use areas from the original games. City 17 would classify as such an area.

[Armageddon]

I thought that meant, don't use decompiled locations. You can use City 17 but not an area the player has seen?

[The_Rabbit42]

Does that mean I can simply say 'oh no, it's actually City 16. Totally different place," and everyone would be completely fine with that?

[jimonions]

Yes you could but your map would still look like city 17.

[Major Banter]

"Your level must bet set in a new location but stay true to the half-life 2 style.(If your not sure if your level fits ask on the forums!)"

Personally I'd let it slide, as it's a new location within a firmly established macro location, but I'm sure you can do better than yet more C17.

In regards to the canon, no district of City 17 would be flooded owing to the Combine siphoning of the oceans, lakes, etc etc. My advice - if you were interested - would be to lean the style and theme towards a different ambience -then you don't need to mess with the geometry and be forced to use custom assets to be less "City 17-ish".

Lighting, fog, sky, and so on would be your main go-tos in terms of visuals. Hell, you could make a reasonable argument for simply removing the Citadel and bam, it's a generic Eastern Europe city. Remember than humanity was corralled into Citadel Cities so the Combine could keep a better eye on things. This could be a city being cleansed, or one being newly-populated by a growing resistance; hence the Combine presence. Up to you.

[The_Rabbit42]

No district of City 17 would be flooded owing to the Combine siphoning of the oceans, lakes, etc etc.

Precisely why I decided to mask that by using the canals, which have been canonically shown to still hold a considerable amount of water.

Hell, you could make a reasonable argument for simply removing the Citadel and bam, it's a generic Eastern Europe city.

Except that apparently simply looking like City 17 is unacceptable.

Honestly, I think it's a pretty inane and arbitrary distinction. If you depict a city and are limited to using the City 17 assets available, of course it's going to still look like City 17. Onebit is setting his in a forest, presumably using White Forest assets. Is that fine even though it is still going to look like White Forest? Generalvivi is doing a warehouse area near White Forest, something also visually depicted in Episode 2. How a setting in an unseen area of White Forest any different than a setting in an unseen area of City 17? And ErikKiller is doing Black Mesa and City 17 outright, which apparently nobody else has commented on.

This isn't just snark. I have sincere questions about this. At this point, I may think of an alternate idea. Or simply not bother.

[Wigbig]

Using the C17 textures doesn't have to mean whatever you make will feel like city 17. It might look like city 17 but if you are creative with the assets then you can create a completely different feel.

[Armageddon]

Man it doesn't matter, half of us aren't going to finish our entries and Steve will probably be happy just to have submissions that follow the rules close enough. Your entry looks cool and I'd really like to see where you go with it.

[Major Banter]

A lot of it comes down to feel. I wouldn't get hung up on the visuals; your focus has been on making the gameplay different, so that should naturally translate to a new ambience - sound especially.

Ravenholm used the same assets as City 17, just in a different way.

[ErikKiller]

Man it doesn't matter, half of us aren't going to finish our entries and Steve will probably be happy just to have submissions that follow the rules close enough. Your entry looks cool and I'd really like to see where you go with it.

Boom. This.

[The_Rabbit42]

I'll be perfectly honest, I kind of forgot all about this contest. And now I've injured my hand and will be in splint for a little while. So...yeah...

[LordDz]

You still have your other hand and feet. Improvise!

[Riomaki]

Well, maybe you don't finish it for the contest. But you should still work on it as you can. Flooded City 17 is kind of a cool idea.