Raindrop mod for Half-Life 2

35 comments by UnkSoldieR on May 31st, 2009 digg this super bookmark

Dienstbier, from hlportal.de, interviewed recently MasterDonut and UnkSoldieR about Raindrop. Here's the English translation of the interview:

HLPortal: Who develops Raindrop?
UnkSoldieR: Our team consists of about 15 people at the moment, a more precise list will be released on our website when it's finished.

HLPortal: The stuff you released so far seems very professional, could you gather experience earlier?
MasterDonut: I started in 2004 to work with Valve's Hammer editor. At first just for fun, then I've created some Half-Life2:Deathmatch and CS:S maps. I didn't work on bigger projects like Raindrop so far. Raindrop originally was merely intended to be an exercise, but the whole project became something bigger than I could imagine.
Unk: Generally we can say that our team consists of talented people, who have partly already worked in the industry.

HLPortal: The setting of Raindrop reminds at first sight of S.T.A.L.K.E.R., is it a tribute to it?
MD: The setting may remind of S.T.A.L.K.E.R., but it's completely independent from it. I was merely inspired by that game, among other things. It may also be the setting "Russia", which in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is "Ukraine".

HLPortal: The back story is very detailed, is it fictitious or based on real facts?
Unk: Concerning the run of events of the II. WW, it all happened; but if there were ever such secret plans of the soviets – we don't know; we fabricated it ourselves. Nevertheless it's not revisionist, since we don't question proved facts.

HLPortal: The screenshots promises a lot. Does Raindrop look in-game that good?
MD: The screenshots, which we released, show exactly how the game looks like. There have been rumors that some of our screenshots are edited with Photoshop, but that's not true.

HLPortal: Do you plan voice acting, for every character?
Unk: Yes we do, we initially wanted to let everyone speak Russian, but now we can say that the final voice acting will be in English.

HLPortal: Will the player be playing in the first person, like in a classic fps game?
Unk: Yes, we use classic first person gameplay and add here and there some new features.

HLPortal: Will you borrow content like textures and models from the Valve games?
Unk: The hands of the protagonist are from DoD:Source (re-textured) and we probably will use some NPC models of Half-Life 2 (also modified).

HLPortal: May the player expect game elements similar to the Half-Life 2 series, like physics riddles?
MD: Definitely. The player will be confronted from time to time with various obstacles and puzzles in the levels.

HLPortal: On your modDB profile you're mentioning "a bunch of new code features". What can we exactly expect?
Unk: Head bobbing (the view moves dynamically with every step), of course in an appropriate way; lens flare; iron sights; a new stamina system and the ability to shoot through walls.

HLPortal: That sounds like more realistic gameplay. Does that influence the level of difficulty?
MD: The mod will be more difficult, how exactly we can't tell right now.

HLPortal: 2010 is the official release date, will you really release Raindrop then? Is there already a more precise date?
Unk: Yes, we will release Raindrop then, more precisely it's the first or second quarter.

We also released an atmosphere video which shows some rainy scenes.

And - as always - here are the latest screenshots: