[HL2_Odyssey] Outside

[BigCheese]

Outside

• Game: Half-Life 2
• Map Name: HL2_Odyssey_M4_Outside
• Context: Part of the HL2_Odyssey project
• Time spent developing: Week 4 of 8 (at 50% work hours)
• Estimated playtime: 10 mins

Description & Background

This map is a part of the HL2-TGA-Project where I am one of 13 level designers. My level takes place Forsaken Courtyards and builds up towards the middle-point of the campaign. The player, armed with the trusty crowbar, pistol and SMG, walks into a seemingly empty part of the city near a river flowing through it. Stray zombies remains and scavenges the alleyways between the buildings, and the player can explore remnants of an old hide-out built by a lone survivor. The player makes their way through the alleyways and buildings, crossing the make-shift mud bridge to the other side of the river and fights combines protecting the inner parts of the city from the zombies. Explore, survive and get past the combines to delve deeper into the city.

 

Role in the campaign

My level is in the early to mid parts of the campaign. Far enough so a few weapons and mechanics are already introduced to the player. I am introducing the grenade in the map and gives the player the chance to experiment and toy around with the new weapon with slow zombies. I am also introducing the Poison Zombie near the middle of the level.

The level is dark and mostly quiet, hopefully creating an eerie atmosphere and giving the player a feeling that this place has been abandoned. The player is left to their own devices, exploring and seeking their way through the level at their own pace before the combat ramps up in the later parts of the map.

 

Alpha Build

The first build of my map is provided in the downlink below. The level ends about 2/3 into the map as the last part needs more polish and gameplay before testing. I’d be very thankful if you’d give it a shot and tell me your thoughts.

You can download it here: <Click to Download>

 

Alpha, Screenshots

[will2k]

Welcome to mapcore, hope you enjoy your stay.

I enjoyed the vertical gameplay in this level where basically all the action takes place in one backyard at different heights and atop different houses. Good job.

The crates in the cargo container where a nice way to reward the curious, scavenging-explorer player.

Some zombies just disappeared when shot, no corpse, no ragdoll.

The inside of the water tower was partly see through. forgotten nodraw or glitch?

The slanted rooftop (2nd pic) was causing me to skid as if I were on ice; might want to smooth it out with clips so the player can easily transition to the ledge without falling.

Keep it up

 

[BigCheese]

Thanks for taking time to play through it!

I wanted to play around with vertical gameplay to see how much gameplay and exploration I could manage with a limited horizontal space. I'm glad that you felt it worked!

Thanks for the heads up about zombies disappearing, looks like I had some Output or Flag wrong (Hammer learning curve). Fixed now!

Regarding the slanted roof, a friend of mine helped out with a player clip so hopefully it feels much better go walk through now.

Can't wait to hear what you guys think about the beta build, I've added the last section of the map for it.