99 BOLTS: September Mid-Month Update
This month’s update is smaller than the last one. There's not so much media this time around. In an effort to grasp my multitasking potential, I’ve been evenly splitting my time between 99 Bolts and another mod called Room Escape. (link) In addition to that, I have the ubiquitous pleasure of getting married to a beautiful young lady from my hometown in about a week or so. And in addition to that, I'm going to be listening to Muse's newest album while driving south to see The Mars Volta live next week. (Two of my favorite bands of all time)
SO!! The combination of 99 Bolts’ continuously positive reception, my ability to crank out maps for both mods, my musical high fortune, and my luck at tagging and bagging my dream girl...all in a thirty day period, guys!!...it all makes this September feel like a very good month. On with the news, then.
PLAYTEST RESULTS
If you haven’t had a run through my playtest, let me re-assure you: you didn’t miss much. The playtest levels I provided might as well have been rotten apple cores for all the visual and gameplay polish they had. But all that aside, I learned some valuable lessons from the gameplay in these playtests that I will be applying to the eventual reincarnation of these maps. I’ll tell you how everything went…here’s how the playtest levels worked. The test is split up into two maps – a bright, wide-open wasteland map with combat against bandits and Combine, and then a dark, claustrophobic underground level with combat against zombies.
In the wasteland map, you found your crossbow early on and started wreaking havoc on the numerous enemies in the wasteland. You soon found some allies and they helped you charge a Combine outpost. When the reinforcements arrived, you left the allies behind and escaped into a network of tunnels. In the tunnels map, you learn that the sparse rebel forces living there have recently lost a crate of grenades to bandits, who fled into the zombie-ridden tunnels. The task falls to you to fight your way through the maze of tunnels and recover the grenades, which you can use to blast open the various metal gates that block your path to the city.
Chief complaints about the wasteland level were that there were too many Combine to fight. Cool, I can dig that. I think a better-designed Combine outpost could have maximized some smaller numbers on their part. Or perhaps I could simply add in a few more rebel pick-up points. You guys tell me how I can solve that scenario, and I will answer you with finished maps. Another problem is that a few of you may have missed finding the crossbow entirely. That’s a very tragic finding in my opinion, as the name of the mod lends itself to the idea that you will have a crossbow!! In the future, I’ll have a cool crossbow-obtaining solution that guarantees you don’t simply miss it.
I got more complaints from the tunnels map and that’s totally understandable. Aside from the sudden aesthetic changes, there were disgusting empty rooms and weird dead ends all over the place. Furthermore, the increasingly larger waves of zombie attacks from all directions seemed to get really frustrating after the second or third time. Combat seemed to feel uninspired. I believe that’s a correct observation. On reflection, I remember trying to design an area that could be dark, simple to navigate but difficult to escape, and multipathed, all while making a gameplay loop. I enjoyed the idea of sending the player back the way he had come previously.
I believe I failed partly because most of the combat was so flat. There was rarely a time when the combat was vertical. The same is true for the wasteland map, but there’s not too much we can do about that. I think that making some more high-low portions (that aren’t stairways) may help the combat feel more diverse. In addition, I think I should focus on making the gameplay more linear, rather than make a straight loop and thus, recycle the level for the player. That will allow me to dispense with making the ever-stronger zombie waves that people seemed to dislike so much, as well as try to tell more stories with visuals.
The next incarnation of these maps will be very interesting to see. I have learned much from the playtest levels, and they have not died in vain. I have a lot of surprises for you. You ought to recognize the remade levels, and you ought to be pleased with the changes I have in store. In the meantime, I welcome more and more people to playtest these two maps, as there can never be enough criticism. So please, tell all your friends to come playtest my dead maps.
TRAPS
This is actually very short and sweet. Via a creative use of parenting, templates, logic, and physics, I have made several prefabs of booby traps that I can easily place into my maps at will. Think of grenade clusters, rigged shotguns, and swinging metal beams. And explosions. Just guess where I might have gotten my inspiration. Luckily, Fallout doesn’t have a monopoly on booby traps, so I have no qualms about making similar traps. It’s going to be a lot of fun setting these babies off in your faces.
Don't worry, though. I'm pretty sure there are a few tricks and objects in the Half-Life universe I can fashion into booby traps. That's not even counting NPC's like manhacks, hoppers, and rollermines, that just make that task easier. My aim, by the way, is to make you fall into as many booby traps as possible without getting frustrated or dying too much. So don't worry about being trap-spammed.
ROOM ESCAPE
I started working on the Room Escape mod heavily right after the August update. That’s why the September Update is weak this time around. Room Escape is being sold as a collection of puzzles with a whole lot of random themes. You might be breaking out of a medieval castle’s dungeon in one moment, then teleporting through space stations the next, all on your quest to Escape the Room you are in. It’s a fun project to work on, as it boosts my will to study logic and puzzles in Source. (I’m working as a mapper for the team)
In addition to getting some practice with puzzles, this project is my first collaboration in any mod. Thanks to a modeler named Vugam on Mod DB, I’m actually starting to learn how to include custom content in a level now, something I had never done before. I am overeager to learn more. Stay tuned to both my personal profile and Room Escape to see how that project grows.
VOLUNTEERS
I have some. I have Vugam as a part-time modeler, which I am grateful for. I also have Bekey7734 as a part-time texture artist, which I am equally grateful for. Both of these guys volunteered their services to 99 Bolts, and it's a huge boost for my morale to collaborate with them. I will occasionally by requesting models and textures from them, and they will occasionally be providing them. Perhaps next month I will have a few custom items to showcase along with the new maps and traps.
GOODBYE, HAWKEYE
Thank you for watching 99 Bolts grow. The next official update will come on October 15th, including my birthday and perhaps some real story elements to tell you about. So that’s cool. What is up with these good months? I suppose I'm due for a few really crappy months soon.
