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[Royal☭]

After watching Frocto play Exquisite Knorpse, I got the itch of wanting to do another collaborative project like that again.  But not in Knytt Stories, because we already done did that.  So I began thinking of games we could do that in, and finally settled on an HL2 single-player map.

Basically each person would create a section, then send it to me (as the moderator) who would then cut off the tail end of the section and give it to the next person in line to create their section.  Each person would be given a weapon they would be provided with, and they would have to make sure their section doesn't require weapons they don't have.  Things like grenades and the gravity gun will be available throughout the entire game.

Then, once everyone had completed their section, they would be joined together (either as one large map ala Minerva, or several large maps linked together) and 3D skyboxes would be linked.  We might even try to establish some kind of narrative throughout the whole thing (if we're truly feeling ambitious).

So is anyone down for cracking open the Hammer editor and giving this a try?

[Brentai]

I think Zara had that idea with a TF2 map, which fizzled out largely on account of not many people knowing Hammer (and because making a balanced multiplayer map that way sounded like a hilarious joke).

Very tentatively in if it takes off, mainly because I'm still sitting here with no graphics accelerator, which may or may not limit my ability to do anything with Source.  HL2 is pretty old, and everything else in this box which hasn't blown up yet is still a powerhouse, even if it's getting on in years too.

[Mothra]

I could potentially be down for this! I was working on a decrepit highway map for the now-dead Sven 2, and I could easily mod that bad boy into something single-player. I mean, it was like 20% done, but I could see myself taking it on again.

Would this be one big massive level, or a bunch of interconnected segments with a map change between them?

[Niku]

i have never used hammer before

do you guys like jumping puzzles

[Brentai]

I'm all for the linear multiple-map approach, partly because it's simple and clean and partly because that's how vanilla HL2 works anyway.  Plus it's the only real way to attempt to build something resembling a narrative, whereas the alternative would be atmosphere and I think we've all had e-fucking-nough of that.

[jsnlxndrlv]

My hammer skills are terrible but I'm up for this.

[Royal☭]

I'm not looking for people to make Valve quality maps here.  Just something fun and connected.

I did have an idea for a story, wherein the person creating their section would get the previous advances to the story, create their own, then hand off where the story is to the next person.  But, knowing the writing tendencies of the people on these forums I'm not sure how good an idea like that would be.

[Niku]

so i downloaded the sdk and it keeps bitching at me about game configurations

[Brentai]

I did have an idea for a story, wherein the person creating their section would get the previous advances to the story, create their own, then hand off where the story is to the next person.  But, knowing the writing tendencies of the people on these forums I'm not sure how good an idea like that would be.

I'm sure it'll be semi-serious for about two levels, then all of a sudden the Combine will all turn into naked clown zombies, and the next level will try to retcon it as some sort of hallucination, and then when things are starting to make sense again you get a cutscene of the world exploding and suddenly you're a short purple hedgehog.

I say go with it, and to hell with the inevitable consequences.  Incredibly stupid can still be fun.

[Niku]

Actually okay

Knorpse is like imagine a chia pet

you water it and the herbs just start growing all the fuck out in different directions

if you then begin to smear frosting on the herbs, it will form several delicious bridges which can then themselves be sprinkled with chocolate chips

on the other hand, this sounds more like taking one of those extendo poop firecrackers and when you hit the end of it, you light another extendo poop

[Niku]

IS ANY OF THIS GETTING THROUGH TO YOU

[Royal☭]

I think it's possible to design HL2 maps as more freeform than linear.

[Brentai]

But... I like extendo-poop firecrackers, and hate chia pets.

[Niku]

True but if you go the seperate-maps route or have only one exit or whatnot, it's still going to create a straight shot in the end.  Which is not necessarily a bad thing butttttt I dunno how super interesting it is.  I'm still in if I can figure out the SDK.

[Guild]

What if I shove a firecracker into a chia-pet's ass and say design the level like a hub with spokes of the other levels branching off? The hub-level could even be designed to be traversed more expertly as new weapons are unlocked.

[jsnlxndrlv]

I like the idea of nonlinear level design, but I'm not sure how you could get it to work with the exquisite corpse format, in the context of HL2. I mean, how do you fit the parts of the level together? How do you ensure they don't try to occupy the same space without also just allowing each person to see what the previous contributors have made? Hammer isn't like the KS editor where you can just copy and paste a preconstructed room over all the "taken" areas to keep other people from building there, is it?

[Royal☭]

True but if you go the seperate-maps route or have only one exit or whatnot, it's still going to create a straight shot in the end.  Which is not necessarily a bad thing butttttt I dunno how super interesting it is.  I'm still in if I can figure out the SDK.

I'm not exactly sure what you're complaining about exactly.  Exquisite Knorpse wasn't really a metroidvania when you broke it down.  Each area just kind of led into the next, with little reason to backtrack.

But the point is to make a HL2 map, which is definitely a lot more linear.  I think it's possible, though, to make the maps less linear if we want.  Creating a kind of hub area and allowing people to go back and forth.


Also:

TWHL: Half-LIfe tutorials
MoDDB tutorials
Editlife
Valve Source Wiki

And there are tons of tutorials on YouTube for people who want to learn.  I know this is slightly more complicated than Knytt, but after a few hours of practicing the tutorials it's possible to create a decent enough map that's not too fancy or anything.

[Royal☭]

I like the idea of nonlinear level design, but I'm not sure how you could get it to work with the exquisite corpse format, in the context of HL2. I mean, how do you fit the parts of the level together? How do you ensure they don't try to occupy the same space without also just allowing each person to see what the previous contributors have made? Hammer isn't like the KS editor where you can just copy and paste a preconstructed room over all the "taken" areas to keep other people from building there, is it?

The idea is I give you a blank map with defined boundaries of where you can build.  IE in one corner there will be an alleyway, taken from the previous section of the map or whatever.  It's possible to copy and paste whole maps into other maps.

[Brentai]

(Copypasting from a post I tried to edit.)

I think it's possible to design HL2 maps as more freeform than linear.

Well you mentioned Minerva already, which I haven't played yet but is, as I understand, very much like that, every bit as much about exploring the environment as it is about achieving an overall goal.

The problem is that Minerva was built by one guy with a vision.  A knorpse, especially one of ours, is doomed to be an interesting-at-times, but overall schizophrenic and disjointed mess.  Without much to encourage players to explore I can only see them wandering to corners at random and saying "Uh huh, okay, this is a thing over here."  At the end of the day I can only see an open map making the parts become more separate, as the map can only really work as a series of fetch quests into people's specific areas/

Knytt Stories did really structure its exploration elements, so at the end of the day making a cohesive thing out of all the bits of the map was just one more challenge to conquer.  HL2 does not have any existing structure like that, unless we're going to mod in double-jump or something.  It would be better to cooperatively build a narrative than a world under those conditions, and if you get creative enough it's entirely possible to fuck with earlier parts of other people's maps if you like.

[Royal☭]

That's perfectly fine, then.

As far as the schizophrenic thing goes, I went knowing perfectly well a map would be disjointed.  The Knorpse barely fit together when everything was said and done.  Nobody can pass off the game as having a cohesive feel to it.

If there is one thing that Half-Life exemplifies in its game design though, is the idea of sets and loops.  Making the most use of the littlest area.  In this vein, we could have the map as kind of come up with your layout and gameplay, then kind of iron out wrinkles to make it more cohesive if we wanted to.