Precursor Mod - HL2 EP2 Singleplayer (now updated to 1.1)

Right about... now, actually!

http://precursormod.com/

I'm adding new mirrors for the 1.1 update atm, two so far.

Nothing in the update demands a replay, this is really for players who have not tried it out yet.

So, Precursor has been out for two months now! I decided to compile some data about the mod. See below!

Really, I was also planning on doing a full dev commentary walkthrough too but... ehm, I felt that Precursor isn't interesting enough to warrant one. Nor is my throat to happy about doing it (I'm a bit ill).

Downloads: 13750

Based on following mirrors*: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

*+ 250 for the old torrent which has been taken down

Trailer Views: 24750

Based on the following sites: 1 2

With the below results:

Overall, did you enjoy Precursor?

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As a whole, how would you rate the mod?

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How difficult was the mod?

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What did you think of the gameplay?

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What did you think of the environments?

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Did you understand the mod's storyline?

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What changes would you like to see?

*free writing question*

OPTIONAL: What would you like to say to us about the game? Write freely!

*free writing question*

Questionnaire Commentary

As we can see, people who take the time to fill in the feedback form are very optimistic, to say the least.

There's one feedback submission form for every, roughly, 137th download.

Common suggestions/criticisms in the free writing forms were the following:

- Bland first third of the game

- Ending was an anti-climax

- More interesting lighting

- Needs flash light

- Difficulty-level was a bit too high

- Needs custom content

- Request for subtitles

- More friendly NPC's

- More story-moments

- Visual quality could be improved

- Not long enough

- Mixed Hunter-Battle reception (some loved it, some hated it, very polarising part of the game)

Common praises:

- Cool intro and chase

- Plausible and good side-story to Half Life

- No flash light

- Overall presentation

- Challenging difficulty level

- Trainride was fun

- Good voice-acting

- Excellent music

- Mixed Hunter-Battle reception (same as mentioned earlier)

Final Comment

It all started with painstakingly learning how to make NPC's spawn when needed and making them move as intended. And this is where the project ended up.

Creating something like this, i.e. producing the core bulk of content yourself and overseeing all other areas, while working hard daytime was a bitch and at one point I was ready to scrap the entire thing since the quality of a few maps was dreadfully low and there was some other problems going on as well. But I managed to motivate myself to completely overhaul the maps in question and, at the very least, make them acceptable quality-wise.

When it comes to content, I'm pretty satisfied. It's not very pretty-looking, original or epic by any means, but I think it's a pretty neatly tied together experience for anyone who's in the mood for more Half Life 2. While designing the mod, I learned that narrative in games is pretty difficult, especially if you want to tell a story using minimal resources. As one can see by the bottom graph, I managed to evade some players with the storyline, but overall I think that players understood and enjoyed the story. All things considered, I think the final product was pretty okay and I've learned a ton making it.

Since this isn't a full post mortem I'll round this up by super-thanking my buddy Andreas aka Dvorak for handling all the coding and for helping me with feedback throughout development. I also want to thank my long-time buddy Oliver Boson for making the music, which has been greatly appreciated by players. Furthermore, kudos goes to my voice actors for donating their time to do top-notch work. Thanks to all testers for helping me polishing the game!

Pudd out!

Well, fudge. A Steam/Source Update has appearently broken this mod and it no longer appears in the Steam Library after installing. I'm busy finding a resolution but lemme know if you know what's wrong!