News & Media Update, 15/11/08 - Neptune Mod for Half-Life 2

Neptune

Half-Life 2 mod | TBD

Neptune is a single-player modification for Half-Life 2, taking place entirely outside the mother game's universe. Set primarily onboard a mysterious and desolate cruise liner, floating in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, Neptune allows the player to slowly unravel the dark and disturbing past of the ship as he/she explores its once-grand rooms, corridors, concert halls, restaurants, bars and maintenance areas. Taking influence from games such as System Shock 2, BioShock, Thief: Deadly Shadows and Silent Hill, Neptune is an atmospheric, narrative-driven, horror-based shooter; an exercise in videogame storytelling and tense level design. It is expected to be released in Q3 2009.

Report article News & Media Update, 15/11/08

What's been happening in the last month, and a new collection of screenshots.

Posted by Donkey81 on Nov 15th, 2008 digg this super bookmark

This morning, we hit a milestone. We sort-of finished a map.

This might not sound like a particularly noteworthy event, but for me it is. I've always been of the belief that, the minute an area of the game stops being fun to work on, the minute you should stop working on it. Leave it, work on something else, come back to it later.

With that in mind, myself and the other level designers have been making little bits and bats of individual maps, without actually getting a great deal finished. For the first time now, though, you can run through one map from start to finish, with most of the details and functions in-place. It only takes about five minutes, but hey - it's something, isn't it?

So, what else have we been doing? Well, there are some new prop models coming along nicely, some new areas of the game are being designed, the story is being continually tweaked and refined, we've got a bit of new code, some new artwork, and a lovely "readable content" system that you can see in action below. This should hopefully add a whole lot of depth to the game world, allowing the player to explore the nuances of the narrative in their own time and as deeply as they see fit. Neptune is a mod that will reward exploration despite its mainly-linear path, and delving into the nooks and crannies of the ship will hopefully throw up some nice surprises.

Since it's been a while since the last news post, a couple of these screenshots won't be particularly new to some, but we hope you like what you see regardless. Thanks to everyone for their support and advice so far - keep spreading the word, and keep in touch!

Lewis & The Neptune Shipmates x