Look at that! More than one post on a mod I made, that's crazy.
After playing more of the first level I made a couple weeks ago, I knew that I obviously had to extend the first mountain area of the mod beyond just the lodge and short outdoors part. With Half-Life having so many science-themed, grey concrete interior textures in it's WAD, it is only natural that I add at least one underground, shady lab themed level, and I think that's ok since it fits with the story and vibe that the mod has so far.
One of the first things I did was make a train system that runs both throughout the level and to other levels. I want my levels to be distinct from one another and largely not Black-Mesa-y in appearance, so these trains will be necessary in transporting the player to different landscapes and climates, which retains more continuity than if I were to just jump cut to another part of the world after a level finishes.
Looking at the footage and pics now, I really overdid some of those lens flare sprites and I think I'm gonna go tone them down right now lol.
With that train bit done, I've recently been working on the meat of the gameplay for this lab level. I've been trying to avoid basic "move here, shoot guy there, repeat" level design and focus mainly on non-combat challenges with a few scattered skirmishes for this level. Also, I want to avoid making any levels where the world is just static and unchanging as you explore and do stuff in them. That often means making a lot of scripted_sequence entities everywhere and making content outside of the Hammer editor, but it is completely worth it as it improves the gameplay experience way more than I thought it would (more so than the FPS/action parts most of the time), even if it is just a really small thing like the train I made that runs on schedules.
The lab is not the only level in progress. I am also working on the whole next area of the mod, which I have not completely decided on in terms of the setting. Currently, it is an urban/city level which I think is working so far, though I have very little progress on it since the scale is so big. Below are some screenshots of that area so far, which includes a train station that serves as a transition from the underground lab to the city, and a couple buildings.
I am still enjoying making this mod so another article will come, though my university semester has started up again so my speed in developing of this mod will start to ebb and flow while that is going on (on top of me also being a relatively new modder as well).
