Category: Modding

Dear Esther Hits 100,000 Sales

May 18th, 2012 · By Vic · 4 Comments

I have nothing but good things to say regarding thechineseroom’s “Dear Esther“. Which is why I’m so happy that, after just three months since its release (and following the very recent release of its Mac port), it has sold 100,000 copies over Steam. It may not sound like much, but for an alternative game (and a PC-exclusive to boot), it’s actually pretty impressive.

Next up, thechineseroom will be tackling two distinct game projects: Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs, a title that speaks for itself; and Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture, an open-world spiritual successor to Dear Esther built on CryEngine 3. They’ll be parting ways with Dear Esther’s lead level designer, Robert Briscoe, which is a huge shame, but I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot of his work in the foreseeable future. That said, I’m still keeping my fingers crossed for a remake of Korsakovia. Hey, maybe even Conscientious Objector.

Okay, maybe not.

Podcast 17 To Interview Portal 2 Mapmaker And Employee Of The Moment, Mevious [UPDATED]

May 15th, 2012 · By Vic · 0 Comments

[UPDATE: It's going on right now! Tune in here, and join the Steam chat here!

Some of you might know that, during my spare time, I co-host the tubular Podcast 17. Today, in approximately 3 hours and 20 minutes (4PM PST/7PM EST/0AM GMT; check out the Steam Group announcement for exact scheduling in your area), we’ll be interviewing the one and only Mevious, one of the world’s top Portal level designers (creator of Portal Pro and Rexaura), and currently the Employee of the Moment on Portal 2′s Perpetual Testing Initiative, over at the Steam Workshop.

Stay tuned to P17′s TwitchTV, as well as P17′s Steam Group, for more info.

Part 2 Of Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s Black Mesa: Source Interview Is Out

May 13th, 2012 · By Vic · 6 Comments

In more than slightly late news on our part, the fine folks at Rock, Paper, Shotgun have posted up part 2 of their interview with Carlos “cman2k” Montero of the Black Mesa: Source devteam. And, yes, there is a bit of new BM:S media – but just a little bit! Read on.

Portal 2′s Perpetual Testing Initiative Hits 1.3 Million Downloads; 35,000 User-Created Test Chambers; And More!

May 11th, 2012 · By Vic · 5 Comments

Released barely two days ago, Portal 2′s latest DLC offering, the Perpetual Testing Initiative has turned out to be a pretty massive success, as heralded by a press release from Valve in which they announced some of the PeTI service’s early statistics. Apparently, over 35,000 custom puzzle levels have already been created and published over the Steam Workshop. In total, the Portal 2 playerbase have already consumed over 1.3 million test chamber downloads.

In celebration, Valve is holding a Weekend Workshop sale on the Steam Store, during which Portal 2 will remain at its Midweek Madness discount of 66% off (about 6 dollars/5 euros), Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim will be 33% off, and within Team Fortress 2′s in-game Mann Co Store, many of the officially released, community-created Steam Workshop items will be available for 50% off their regular price. Now that’s science for you. Quick, go buy things!

And if you haven’t had enough science within the PeTI, then allow me to provide you with some of my recommendations: CaretCaret’s “12 Angry Tests” series, which contains some of the greatest level design, puzzle gameplay and bizarre humor I have ever experienced; Jaxe’s excellent “Decay” mini-series, sporting some incredible level design, built for intermediate to skilled Portal players; Motanum’s A La Tag series, with unique and innovatie gameplay strongly focused on gel gameplay; and the Podcast 17 Community Chamber collection, encompassing all puzzle levels created by my brothers in arms and colleagues: the Podcast 17 community members.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun Interviews Carlos Montero, Lead Developer of Black Mesa: Source

May 9th, 2012 · By Vic · 14 Comments

It seems like everything even remotely Half-Life related is ultimately doomed to spend some time in some manner of development hell, limbo or purgatory. No one knows this better than the modders still hard at work on Black Mesa: Source, a remake/reimagining of the original Half-Life, built on the modern-day Source engine, and in the works since late 2004. It’s a colossal endeavor for a team of maybe two dozen amateur developers. With no actual budget, their only resource is time, and they have had a lot of it.

Now, Rock, Paper, Shotgun have managed to ”crowbar the answers” out of Carlos “cman2k” Montero, project lead of BM:S, in an insightful and well-done two-part interview. Let’s take a look at part 1, after the jump.

Portal 2′s Perpetual Testing Initiative DLC Is Finally Here!

May 8th, 2012 · By Vic · 13 Comments

At last, Portal 2′s second DLC release, the Perpetual Testing Initiative, has been released to all owners of Portal 2 for free! Featuring a brand new easy-to-use “Puzzle Maker” toolkit for creating your own test chambers, alongside integration with the Steam Workshop, allowing near-instant uploading, rating, sharing, downloading and playing custom levels; and a new side-story featuring Cave Johnson – you absolutely cannot miss this thing. If all goes well, Portal 2 should be downloading and installing the new DLC update as you’re reading this article. In addition, Portal 2′s Steam Workshop section is now live.

If your Portal 2 has not updated yet, and is showing no signs of doing so, consider simply starting up the game/restarting Steam/verifying your game cache; or in some cases, uninstalling Portal 2 (but don’t worry, the Steam Cloud will restore everything). Keep in mind that it is a sizeable update, with an average size of 815 MB.

While you wait for the download to finish, check out the redesigned official Portal 2 website, and consider reading Cave Johnson’s rant about building more test chambers, as well as Valve’s simple guide on setting up your own test chamber in the new Puzzle Maker. You might also be interested in reading my impressions of the Perpetual Testing Initiative itself, which you’ll find in our review. Once all that’s done… get testing!

CS:GO Beta Updated, SDK Is Released To All Beta Players

May 6th, 2012 · By Vic · 6 Comments

As usual, Valve released their weekly update for the CS: Global Offensive update just this past Friday. Alongside the release of yet another batch of beta invites sent to survey applicants, Valve has made the CS:GO beta SDK publically available for all those in the CS:GO beta. If you’re interested in CS:GO level design, they recommend that you join the CS:GO SDK mailing list. Later on, Steam Workshop integration will be added (just like Portal 2 and its Perpetual Testing Initiative), so that all players can view, rate, upload and download maps. The level editor itself is, of course, Hammer 4.1, so not much has changed. That said, it does feature all the new entities that you’ll be needing for your CS:GO level design needs, including the new isometric shadow-mapping system, which is actually surprisingly easy to set up and use.

The game update itself features some slight changes to weapon accuracy and recoil which have been well received by most players, as well as some game optimization. In addition, SE versions of the DE_Nuke and DE_Inferno maps have been added to the game, providing competitive players with levels stripped of all props and superfluous visual effects. There have also been changes on the audio design front, such as raising the volume of firing sounds; increasing the distance at which firing sounds fade out; and removing all DSP from footsteps and firing sounds for improved sound directionality. However, Global Offensive’s audio still needs quite a bit of work, and I’d recommend replacing or heavily modifying certain firing sounds (the M4, P2000, P250, SCAR-20 and SSG08, in particular). Overall, this is a strong update that improves the game even further. Check out the blog post for more info.

CS: Global Offensive SDK To Enter Beta In One Week, Will Feature Steam Workshop Integration [UPDATED]

April 20th, 2012 · By Vic · 3 Comments

[UPDATE: Chet Faliszek tells us that CS:GO's SDK will contain the classic Hammer Editor.]

What would Counter-Strike be without custom maps? Well… pretty much nothing. As a matter of fact, most, if not almost all of the maps held most dear by Counter-Strike fans were created by third-party mappers. So the release of a level design toolkit is crucial to CS:GO’s development. Hammer (or, to call it by its maiden name, WorldCraft) is getting a bit old, and Portal has already replaced it with a far simpler and more versatile Puzzle Creator. So what’s going on over at the CS front?

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