Ballmen is a total-conversion for Half-Life 2 featuring frenetic, fast-paced deathmatch with a unique twist: wallwalking. Essentially, any surface is traversable, including walls and ceilings. Combine that with eight weapons and a host of power-ups, and you get Ballmen. The mod is currently in beta stages. Visit our website for more information. Beta 1.5 now available for download.

Report this article Release: Ballmen Beta 1.5

Beta 1.5 of Ballmen has been released and is available for download, with new maps, many bugfixes and balancing changes, early custom sounds, and improved code. We also have new media and a shiny new website.

Posted by Ennui on Apr 19th, 2008 digg this super bookmark


Beta 1.5 of Ballmen is now available for download! 1.5 includes three new maps from our custom mapping community: pamingo, hyroquasium, and fallsafe, as well as early custom sounds. The majority of this update is in bugfixes and balancing, so you'll notice a lot of little tweaks and generally better overall stability. Not much has changed visually (but will in the future, rest assured) so we don't have much media to flaunt, but the following screens were taken during internal playtesting, and you can view gameplay videos in our media section.

Beta 1.5 Playtesting Beta 1.5 Playtesting Beta 1.5 Playtesting Beta 1.5 Playtesting



Changelog:
- [BUGFIX] Greatly improved stability of the client and server
- [BUGFIX] Improved wallwalking code, fixing problems
- [BUGFIX] Fixed certain entities crashing the game
- [TWEAK] Increased energy regen
- [TWEAK] Added delay to Beam fire
- [TWEAK] Increased ROF and tracking of Nailgun
- [TWEAK] Reduced star spawn time in Scavenger Hunt from 1 min to 20 sec
- [TWEAK] Doubled the countdown time of Doomsday and increased its damage
- [ADDITION] Replaced a number of weapon sounds with custom ones
- [ADDITION] New maps: hyroquasium, fallsafe, and pamingo
- [ADDITION] Servers can specify the min/max players and gamemode for map
- [ADDITION] New entities: info_direction, func_gravity_control, and trigger_force

A list of download mirrors for both the client and server files can be found here. Please report any bugs or suggestions you have on our forum. The next release version of Ballmen is already under development and will have more gameplay and content additions than this one. Keep on Ballin!

Download Ballmen Beta 1.5 Installer
Download Ballmen Beta 1.5 Windows Server

Comments
darthc0da
darthc0da Apr 19 2008, 7:08pm says:

interesting mod. i think you should work on some new cel shaded weapon models to match the cartoony scheme.

+1 vote     reply to comment
Ennui
Ennui Apr 19 2008, 7:49pm replied:

We are currently concepting a better-looking and more cartoony weapon model, the current one is a placeholder.

+2 votes     reply to comment
FJS
FJS Apr 19 2008, 7:21pm says:

Great! Downloading now :D!

+1 vote     reply to comment
stenchy
stenchy Apr 19 2008, 7:42pm says:

Great job on putting together the release post - it got you up in the rotator. Any other mods looking to do the same should look over these criteria: Moddb.com

Keep it up guys.

+1 vote     reply to comment
Ennui
Ennui Apr 19 2008, 7:47pm replied:

I've been posting news at Halflife2.net for years, it's kind of second nature by now :D Thanks for putting us on the frontpage rotator!

+2 votes     reply to comment
Aeneas2020
Aeneas2020 Apr 19 2008, 10:00pm says:

this mod is a load of balls.....in a good way :P

+5 votes     reply to comment
Harimau
Harimau Apr 19 2008, 10:18pm says:

Hmm, definitely giving this one a download. Do I need to remove the old version or will I just be able to install it straight off?

+1 vote     reply to comment
Ennui
Ennui Apr 19 2008, 10:30pm replied:

probably be best to remove the old one first

+1 vote     reply to comment
Snarboo
Snarboo Apr 19 2008, 11:13pm says:

Oh wow this came out of nowhere. I like the visual style. Reminds me of a cross between Vectorman and Tron. :)

+1 vote     reply to comment
DOLBYdigital
DOLBYdigital Apr 20 2008, 3:09am says:

Sweet I really liked the last beta so this one can only get better :)
Keep up the great work

+1 vote     reply to comment
oWn4g3
oWn4g3 Apr 20 2008, 4:14am says:

Woohoo an update.
The first one was great fun and a nice load of action :D
Hope to see more

+1 vote     reply to comment
IZaNaGI
IZaNaGI Apr 20 2008, 9:41am says:

Just played this a couple of hours ago and had an absolute riot, the only problem being that one the maps (i forget the name but it was blue and the surfaces auto stickied you) made me real motion sick after a while.

Regardless this is one of the most fun Deathmatch experiences i've had in years. Cant wait to see the mod fleshed out a bit more, so many awesome opportunities for stunning maps to be made.

Good job!

+1 vote     reply to comment
LIONz
LIONz Apr 20 2008, 6:05pm says:

Awesome mod!
Good job!

+2 votes     reply to comment
Jeffman12
Jeffman12 Apr 20 2008, 7:22pm says:

I wish it was Vectorman.

+1 vote     reply to comment
Jackal110369
Jackal110369 Apr 20 2008, 9:39pm says:

I played it and I like the concept, however everyone is hard as hell to kill. I think less health would be good, since you can shoot someone with a shotgun 4 or 5 times in the head with no result.

+1 vote     reply to comment
MovEaxEsp
MovEaxEsp Apr 21 2008, 8:05am replied:

It takes a while to kill someone because when you're fighting someone, we wanted you to have an actual fight with him. We really didn't want it to be, "You see someone. He sees you. You blink. One of you dies." Whether or not you kill someone is (hopefully) determined by how well you use your weapons and anticipate his actions, instead of a split second stroke of luck.

But, there are still a couple of ways to kill someone in a second or two if you're fast. You can slow someone and open up with the mini, shotgun, beam them, or flak them if they're in the air. If they're close to an edge you can try aiming a rocket so it makes them fly out of the level, netting you a nice, easy kill. Pushing people out is meant to be a very viable way to fight, and a lot of times, its a much easier and faster way to kill than actually bringing someones health to zero.

+1 vote     reply to comment
awesomepossum
awesomepossum Apr 21 2008, 3:30am says:

Pretty neat mod, wall walking is awesome.

+1 vote     reply to comment
LIONz
LIONz Apr 21 2008, 5:36am says:

Hmm i think this mod needs cooler player weapon and pickup models. And linux server version so i can create dedicated server :D

+1 vote     reply to comment
AnarchyDom
AnarchyDom Apr 21 2008, 5:55am says:

Great mod. I love its simplistic maps and characters and its fast paced action, but I didn't really like having to look to the side of the screen to see which weapon to select, because this stopped me from paying full attention the the game. Not something I could play for hours, but it's certainly a short burst of fun action (:

+1 vote     reply to comment
MovEaxEsp
MovEaxEsp Apr 21 2008, 8:08am replied:

We'll probably make those icon's bigger so they're easier to see in the future. We also don't know exactly what the weapon model will be, but there might be some sort of indication on it of what you have currently selected, so you might not have to look at the side of the screen at all.

+1 vote     reply to comment
smokeythebear
smokeythebear Apr 21 2008, 4:02pm says:

Dl'ed

Nobody playing :'(

+1 vote     reply to comment
Ennui
Ennui Apr 21 2008, 4:16pm replied:

Try again, I'm in game with six people right now :P

+1 vote     reply to comment
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Ballmen Dev Group
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Released Mar 22, 2008
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