BLACK SNOW released!

[LordDz]

I have no idea of what this is, seriously your way of promoting stuff sucks.
I will download it tomorrow.

[Armageddon]

I think the mystery of all the art and names is intriguing LordDz.

Anyways finished thee mod and it was quite good, as most have said I wish it was longer. Felt like a better and more colourful Penumbra.

It was very dark as said, and not scary dark it's I can't see a thing dark which way do I walk. Getting down that first hallway with the monster took a long time for me. Once I went down the hallway and pushed the box from the door there's another monster right there on me so I leave through the door. A little while later I came back and I'm stuck inside the monster since I spawned right in front of the door. Just a lot of smaller bugs like that, the inventory world icons would almost never work for some reason too.

Great mod all around though and I hope the story is continued. It was cool to watch it as a tape.

[Kremator]

I have no idea of what this is, seriously your way of promoting stuff sucks.
I will download it tomorrow.

Errr, I think I made it pretty clear in the post, and I quote :

BLACK SNOW is a singleplayer horror adventure mod with an emphasis on atmosphere and strong inklings to The Thing movies.

You play John Matsuda, an IT Technician that is part of the Prometheus assessment team sent to investigate communication silence at a research station in Greenland. Naturally, nothing is what it seems.

I'm not sure how much more straightforward I can be but I'm sorry that it was confusing.

[Kremator]

Just played part of it. While not hated it, my opinion (so far) isn´t exactly very positive. Are you interested on hearing it? I´m not going to be intentionally harsh but there are quite a few things to point IMHO.

Sure thing, don't forget to use spoiler tags tho!

[Mehis]

Oh, and I forgot to thank you for not adding any weapons. I love you.
I'm planning to do a review of this when I get my Vegas to work. So I can fully express what I think about the mod.

[Gambini]

Well, I will refresh my mind tonight when resuming my progress, and then write a more detailed post (probably a review at moddb as i usually do). but so far I can give you a few quick impressions:
One is disapointment, I remember that 50´s city you´ve been building some years ago (here or at mapcore) So as soon as I read your name in the post I knew I had to play this ASAP. The disapointment comes when seeing that most of the mod design is pretty "squarish" and monotone. It is not bad, but you understand I expected some more bold decisions in design. Then, as I read someone already pointed out: Dark doesn´t mean scary. But those are just minor complaints, more nitpickings than real complaints

What I really disliked were those messages on screen telling me what I´m thinking. Part of the inmersion in a game relies on making the player feel the world and take their own conclusions about it. Telling them what they are thinking just bottlenecks their freedom of choice. I´d rather point the player in the right direction, but allow them to commit their own mistakes. Another thing very related to that is the inventory system, while I understand the technical limitation about an inventory in a Source mod, I also understand that an inventory is meant to be used in a way where the player picks an object and tries it against a target. An inventory system where things are picked up automatically and then applied on the environment automatically just makes no sense as such.

That chemical puzzle for example, the only thing you have to do is walking around pressing use and eventually it will work

.

Then... well, because of the way health is restored and the way you can interact with the environment, it had a strong Cryostasis vibe (and I didnt like Cryostasis).

I´m not done with the mod yet, so take this post as a first impression only.

EDIT: Well, since it is mentioned in the post above, I´ll also refer to weapons. As a first person shooter enthusiast, my index finger was shaking above the mouse button waitng for the moment of shooting. Sad to read i wont be able to shoot anything.

[Kremator]

I think you might be mistaking me with someone else, I never built any 50s city nor am I an active member on Mapcore lol. HOWEVER, your points are indeed valid but bear in mind this is a different kind of game and with severe limitations (I did not ship with any custom dlls). My objective was to recreate a more classical survival horror genre which, granted, are marred with a lot of odd design decisions so that also translated over. I could be a lot bolder with my design decisions if I have more time/ability to code but rest assured that the current project is attempting something more, as it stands, what I have managed to accomplish with the mod overloaded my entdata hence I had to split the map into 2, otherwise there would've been no loading originally so I was severely limited in terms of what I can add and can't. The setting itself didn't allow for much to be happening, I researched extensively on a lot of arctic stations and unfortunately, in such conditions, structures tend to be pretty bland, I probably could've done more but tbh Source 2009 was grinding my gears and this will probably be my last project based on that engine.

I am well aware of all the points you've made and will be making an effort to improve on some of them with a patch, but again - rest assured that the current project I am working on will not be too similar.

[Plague]

This was a fresh experience, felt good to take a couple hours and experience some good survival horror puzzle gameplay.
A few Notes assuming you haven't been notified of these already.
Most Obviously:

The alternating hallway of lights was a cool idea but it wasn't really explained. To make it worse the time it takes for the lights to complete a full cycle makes it a painful mistake.

Also more annoying is that with the rate of health loss you can easily navigate around the building, see the sign with the engraving and go all the way to the kennel without dying, this would allow you access to the list and give you the torch early on. This could be by design since it rewards players who venture out of bounds.

Also later on after entering the kitchen area:

When you start collecting the xray sheets the growths sometimes expand when under light and other times not, its a tad hard to navigate around them without getting hit, also maybe by design.

Once you enter the server room the idea was that the man with the illuminated face shows up. You can grab the box from the store room across from the server room and put the box under the door, which when it tries to close behind the player it proceeds to open back up and allows the player to see and follow the mysterious man.

I had trouble locating the last sheet for the door code, I found the one in the bucket in the caff., the one behind the bar and one in the server room, otherwise I felt like there were no other places I could go. I did notice down the hallway from the observatory door was a lot of room but I had run out of flares quickly and was under the impression one of the shadow creatures must be in there.
My solution to this problem was just figuring out the correct order using the 3 sheets (+1) and running through each key to figure out the last number.

Conclusion:

Finally I feel like the mod is really inconclusive for it's length, while I respect the sort of creepy unknown ending it feels more like an unfinished project. My guess would be this ties in very directly with whatever you're working on next.

Other than that It was really well done, I'm looking at all the information and trying to see if I can get an idea of the out of game stuff.

[HoliestCows]

I wrote a long review explaining everything I liked, disliked then my Chrome crashed and I lost my review. I am now too lazy to fully re-write it so I will just do a basic one.

--- Positives

The intro was great and original

The Puzzle/Interaction system was great and fresh.

The atmosphere was unique.

The "Monster" was the first monster ive seen in a video game that I was truly afraid of throughout the entirety of the game.

The Detail in the various locations such as random notes, or person affects really helped immerse me into the game.

--- Negatives

The intro was good, but also left a lot of questioning, the only thing I got from what was happening was that, Im in the arctic and "Shit Happened"

The Puzzles sometimes were very blunt and the items you could use were not always so obvious, such as the blow torch.

--- Over all I definitely think it was one of the better horror mods made in source in a long time, I definitely think people should play this if they enjoy scary games and want something new and fresh to play.

also mr2vc is gay

[jimonions]

I only played for a bit before I had to stop because I simply did not understand what I was doing.

I figured finding a way to turn on the generator was the priority. With the handle being frozen over, going into one of the other buildings was the only option to get at it. I found the hook and got into the main building, the light part didn't trouble me at all since I had already played all 3 parts of Penumbra. The sign at the begging said to "stay illuminated" which IMO was even more straightforward than my first experience in Penumbra, but after making a full round across the building and moving the box out of the doorway I realised I just ended up back where I started which was frustratingly confusing. I was expecting an answer to the generator door problem at the end, maybe a blowtorch or something but found nothing. Maybe I missed something I don't know but that's where I stopped. Id appreciate it if somebody could give me a tip on what I'm supposed to do.

A small other thing, when I was in the computer interface the tips on the top right faded away real quick and I was stuck for about 2 min trying different keyboard keys to get out.

[Mehis]

I figured finding a way to turn on the generator was the priority. With the handle being frozen over, going into one of the other buildings was the only option to get at it. I found the hook and got into the main building, the light part didn't trouble me at all since I had already played all 3 parts of Penumbra. The sign at the begging said to "stay illuminated" which IMO was even more straightforward than my first experience in Penumbra, but after making a full round across the building and moving the box out of the doorway I realised I just ended up back where I started which was frustratingly confusing. I was expecting an answer to the generator door problem at the end, maybe a blowtorch or something but found nothing. Maybe I missed something I don't know but that's where I stopped. Id appreciate it if somebody could give me a tip on what I'm supposed to do.

Go through the double doors (where you moved the crate out of the way), follow the path to the left and you should arrive to the kennel/garage area. After that you need to pry the kennel door open with something (it's near the door).
There you can find the blowtorch. It is almost impossible to see anything in the garage so be prepared to die a lot.
Hint: Use the flare to keep the monster away in the garage area and try to climb up a stack of boxes.

[jimonions]

Thanks Mehis

I got up to the part with the xrays, I had become so frustrated with having to squint to see in pitch dark that I just bound a key to create_flashlight to illuminate areas to find the sheets. the interface for the light screen was I have to say very bad. After trying all the keys for a bit trying to see what I could do I just left it and no-clipped through the door. I found the map and the game ended, I felt like punching out my monitor.

To me it looked like the story was coming together and I was going to find an answer or some sort of conclusion to what happened to the team and the research base. Maybe the mod was taking too long to make or everybody had lost interest? The quality was top notch but the actual game design was very flawed in some ways like the x-rays and the use of flares. I think if everybody had kept at it it could've become something worth playing

[MaK]

Long review I wrote for ModDB, exceeded max characters.

To start things off, this is a very good mod. It's atmosphere, sound, and story telling are all very well done. Graphically it's pleasing in most areas, nothing looks 'ugly' and is all quite consistent. Black Snow can be rather scary at times, and is generally creepy throughout. I love this style of horror, and how its tends to stay away from most cliché horror ideas found in HL2 mods. This is definitely a mod I would've loved to work on and be a part of myself. Its professional and very well thought out, it makes you think. That being said, I'm may be overly critical on every thing else, simply because I felt like it could have been more than it was. Beware: wall of text, from someone who doesn't write reviews.

Most people are right that there isn't much direction. I get that is the point of the mod, but for the first 10 minutes or so I found myself running around learning the environment, dying and trying to figure what I was supposed to do. Was this an issue of the bad game direction or me just being stupid, I don't know, but at the very beginning it just felt confusing. I personally understood the light puzzle part fine, but sometimes the monster would still get in the way. Scary as hell at first, later it just becomes annoying.

There were a few bugs in the game that weren't too game-breaking, but were annoying. I played on v1.05. I still had problems exiting the vgui screens. I had tried everything, I got +jump in the console to work a few times if I spammed it, but then it bound ESC to jump for some reason so I just restarted. On every note I just saved before I opened it, read it, and the reloaded. I'm just glad there was nothing that I HAD to read to progress. Also not everything in the inventory showed up when I hit tab, not sure why. I wouldn't call the next one a bug but it was annoying. Many people complained that it was too dark. A lot of the time it was necessary because of the monster, but the rest was a little annoying, especially in the cases where it was pitch black. The one thing that stood out to me was in the generator room basement, after turning on the generator. My problem was that I had a hard time climbing up the boxes or finding the stairs to get back up because it was literally pitch black in that spot. Come to think of it, it was pretty silly there were lanterns laying around places and the player couldn't pick them up and carry it around.

The general idea of progression in the mod was there, and it played well for the most part. When you were getting things done, you knew and felt like you were indeed moving forward, in one way or another. Every time I got lost and didn't know what to do next, I felt myself falling back on all these ideas and queues of future progression in the game, which were never actually fulfilled. Especially after the ending, I realized some things just didn't have meaning, and felt like they were thrown in for no reason, or possibly for future story progression that was never implemented. I know this is being extremely picky and I shouldn't expect that every single thing have a purpose, but this is just what went though my head when I was lost and backtracking, which happened a lot.

Keep in mind I had these problems and was confused because the purpose of new items you pick up are never clear, the usual tactic I learned is press E on everything.

-The vent in the bottom of the generator room that you can open up, I assumed I might have been able to get past sometime in the future.
-The ice box room in the kennel where you have to climb down the ladder, meaningless?
-The boarded up double doors near the entrance of the main building, I kept going back hoping to break it down with my new found hammer. (Even though there's another hammer on the table by the transistor room, ahhh!)
-The room in lodging blocked by the strange membrane, I was trying to figure how to get in there.
-The hangar, I imagined the whole time I might find a shovel and dig up/blowtorch an entrance.
-And most of all the axe stabbed into the computer. I thought the entire time I must have to use this near the end to fight off 'zombies' or break down doors. Now that I think of it, why was that even really put there? There it was always in the back of my head trying to solve the “axe puzzle,” wondering if I had turned off the electricity in that room.

The game ended very abrupt. This was probably the only disappointing part of the mod. I understand its a different kind of ending, and it is actually quite realistic as a whole, but it just felt very lazy to me. It felt unfinished, there was no climax, and everything I had worked toward, as many have said, just didn't matter. Most of all, it was upsetting because I was hoping there was more. The story was actually interesting and was told extremely well. The end was confusing to me at first, because I hadn't even collected everything off the list, the tire link. I wondered if I had missed something and there could have been a second “complete” ending.

Anyway I apologize for my long rant/review, I hope some people agree with the points I make. I never usually write reviews for mods, but I loved where this mod was going. It was difficult to score because everything was mostly fantastic and then the end was a bit of a slap in the face. Regardless, this mod stands out from any other, and should be an example for anyone even thinking about making a horror mod.

[Gambini]

Oh I also promised a review, so here it is:

http://www.moddb.com/mods/black-snow/re ... t&rating=8 (not sure how to link the review directly)

I wasn´t able to finish the mod but, imo, because a gameplay flaw. Still this is much better than what you usually see around so: congrats for the work.

[kraid]

I installed the Patch 1.05 today and suddenly all triggers are visible and the game crashed when entering the main building.