Lake 17 - HL2 Ep01 SP map

[shapesform]

Lake 17 is a single player level I have been working on for a few months now, you can read a bit about it here

Requires HL2: Ep01

DOWNLOAD

[Sa74n]

looks great!

[-HP-]

HL2 lives on!

Good stuff.

[aaron_da_killa]

First of all, I would like to say that I couldn't find get to the places shown in the 2nd, 5th, 6th, 7th screenshots. I noclipped around the whole map (after I finished it ofcourse) and I couldn't find those places, could you maybe give me some insight as to where I need to go or what I need to do?

Anyway, I enjoyed this map, after I killed that bitch of a strider (took me a while (I was on 12 health), did you raise the strider's health?), I definitely wanted more and was disappointed once I realized that it was over (this is a good thing! ).

One thing that was detracting from my fun was the frame rates. Now I don't know if it is my pretty crappy laptop or if the map just had too much in it (I guess this lagged while the normal episode 1 campaign doesn't lag for me), but it had a bit of lag for me. Assuming this map was fully optimized, there wasn't much you could do about the lag, it is mainly due to the maps open design causing too much to be on screen at one time (I know how it feels, I recently released a map with the same problem).

But other than the frame rate issues, this was really enjoyable. I liked the level design, it was obvious that it was in the Half-life universe but it wasn't exactly the Half-life style, it almost had a bit of Halo in it, and I really like Halo. I liked the design of the tunnel and the bridge (although it didn't look exactly finished to me) and I liked how you laid out the background buildings, power lines and trees, basically, I liked the whole layout and design of the map, even if it isn't exactly frame rate friendly.

There was some use of ambient sound in the map, but I thought you could have done more in that department. There was no environment sounds at all, at least some wind or ocean sounds would have been good. You could have added sounds of the trees swaying in the wind around the house, and possibly some seagulls flying around, making seagull noises. There could have also been some subtle sounds coming from the town in the background, I believe this is set during the Seven Hour War, so some explosion and gun fire sounds would have been good.. I don't know, these are just suggestions.

The maps lighting was good, nothing was wrong with it.

So, to conclude:

+Gameplay

+Level Design and Layout

-Frame rates

-Some things didn't look finished

Things to improve:

+ A design that is both awesome and frame rate friendly

+ More variety in ambient sounds

+ Polish the map a bit and make everything look finished

I give this a 8.5/10, great work shapesform!

[shapesform]

Thank you very much for the words of insight, I really appreciate it. The map has been fully optimized so that is as fast as the map will play on your laptop im afraid, but if you can run HL you shouldnt have any problem running this map. When you take down the strider it opens a hole in the ground inside the tunnel near the broken tanker, drop down there to continue on with the map (I may have to make this more obvious depending on community response), you have only played through roughly 1/4 of the level. Environment sounds are triggered as you progress throughout the level, you should find a healthly dose of music, but adding more outdoor ambient sounds is a good idea none the less. The tunnel was left fairly empty because of the huge draw distance, It really helped to boost the framerate in that particular area so I decided to pour those resources (that would be in the tunnel) into areas that were in greater need of detail. If you get stuck again please post and let me know.

[Freak]

nice work dude, but it is impossible to play it for me, my highest framerate was at about 22fps >.

[shapesform]

type mat_hdr_enabled 0 (disables high definition range) in console or try lowering some of your settings. You may experience a bit of slow down on the bridge after you fight the strider and are walking back to the tunnel if you are on a lower end system.