As fun as custom HL2, Portal, or Portal 2 maps can be, installing them can turn into a pain, after you’ve hit your 90th custom map or something. Go to that folder, put this in that folder, type that phrase you keep forgetting in the console, and so on, and so forth. But what if there was an easy-to-use, convenient application for installing custom Source maps and mappacks, on just about any Source game available?
There is?
Why, yes, there is! Meet PlanetPhillip’s MapTap! A simple, well-developed application that allows you to install, uninstall, manage, and play your Source maps, all from within the application itself. It starts the game up for you, hell, it’ll even start Steam up for you! It auto-updates, it has a bug reporter tool, it has support for multiple Steam accounts, and it is completely free!
However, it was designed to support files from PlanetPhillip, and as such, files downloaded from any other websites may or may not work, but you will receive no support for them. It does not support GoldSource maps, which is a shame. But hey – MapTap’s got everything else, well, except for maybe the kitchen sink. But it is a tap, so I suppose we can forget the kitchen sink.
I might be having a larger, more in-depth article on MapTap within the week. Until then, I can only strongly encourage you to download MapTap and try it out! Trust me, you’ll love it.
That’s not all Phillip’s got for the MapTap launch – he is also doing a MapTap giveaway! Let’s look to the MapTap release post for more:
In addition, I am also announcing a special giveaway for confirmed users of the application.
On the 31st October I will be randomly selecting a user and sending them the following games:
- Blood Bowl: Legendary Edition
- Trine
- Company of Heroes Complete Pack
- Alpha Protocol
- Day of Defeat: Source
- Left 4 Dead 2
- Iron Grip: Warlord
- Serious Sam Classic: First Encounter
- Serious Sam Classic: Second Encounter
- Plus some other games that I will purchase between now and then.
“Confirmed users?”, I hear you ask? “Is Phillip some sort of wizard?!”, I hear you exclaim? You see, each MapTap user who has installed the application and used it at least once, receives a special authentification key, linked to their installation ID (keep in mind that MapTap does NOT collect any private information, of ANY sort, from its users). As such, you must have MapTap, and you must have used it, in order to participate in this give-away.
Phillip will announce the winner’s MapTap installation ID, and the winner will then have to contact Phillip with his special authentification key. Once Phillip’s made sure everything checks out, the winner will get all of those lovely games! Two of which were donated by yours truly – Sam: First Encounter and Second Encounter.
So, head over to the MapTap homepage, download it, and try it out! Who knows, you may very well win the give-away! Again, you don’t need to register or post anywhere – you’ve just gotta check PlanetPhillip on the 31st of October, to see if it’s your installation ID!
However, the release of MapTap is not all Phillip is celebrating! The 8th birthday of the PlanetPhillip website was several days ago, on the 23rd of September! We’d like to wish PlanetPhillip a (belated) happy birthday, and we hope to see the site active for many more years to come. Coincidentally, the 23rd of September, 2003, was also the day the infamous Half-Life 2 delay was announced. Never forget! Okay, maybe forget about that. But never forget about Phillip’s birthday!
Very handy!