Half-Life: The Core is a classic retelling of the events surrounding the Resonance Cascade disaster from a new perspective. Featuring intense action, complex puzzles and believable narrative through all-new locations in Black Mesa with remarkable visual fidelity, pacing and humour.
What are your thoughts on pre-disaster levels?
Poll started by monster_urby with 318 votes and 13 comments. Browse the poll archive.
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They're great but should be properly handled. Make it too long and you bore the player while sacrificing development time on maps without real gameplay, make it too short and it becomes pointless, seems tacked on and will feel like they're added in just because HL also did it.
Find the sweet spot.
Peaceful Black Mesa - it's one of the greatest parts of the game for me. It makes so real everything that happens.
A short intro would be perfect. For example - i remember in Residual Point/Residual Life it was very long and annoying for me.
Maybe have both a long and short intro?
Have a means to just get to your job quicker as well as have the option to take the "Long way" around for those who want to sight-see and interact with Black Mesa's inhabitants before things go pear shaped.
Good way to satisfy those who want to cut to the chase and kill some Aliens as well as those who love the slow and steady approach.
It's like picking between taking the elevator or taking the stairs! I like being able to choose, as long as its clear to the player that the long way is optional. I think a lot of people will likely take the long way the first time through to explore and just take the quick route on any subsequent playthroughs.
Pre-disaster maps can be great, especially when you revisit the areas after the disaster!
However, I dislike them when there's a long elevator or tram ride. In that case I skip them with host_framerate.
I want them to be as long as possible, ideally a whole game
HL Induction is the pinnacle example of how pre-disaster Black Mesa can be well-handled.
IMHO it's all about going further in the lore, avoiding paradoxes or retcons, providing interesting events, stories or characters.
There is so much untold stories about Black Mesa that can be interesting.
Remember also how Black Mesa - the HL1 remake - just makes you wander around listening to long discussions between scientists, etc.
And the recent example of Delta Particles show us how the player is more involved/concerned with the events if provided more context or friendly/interesting NPCs.
Personally I love the calm beginnings before hitting the eye of the storm, for example in Zelda: Wind Waker, and of course Half-Life 1 and Blue Shift. Such beginnings both immerse you in the world while providing contrast to the chaos to come, thus setting the stakes for the player.
If I had to choose I'd rather take an overtly long intro compared to an overtly short one, but neither is ideal of course. I think Half-Life 1 and Black Mesa were pretty much perfect with it.
It depends on the plot of the mod.
If the main character works at some special section of the research facility (or just happens to be there at the pre-disaster time) and you have some ideas on what you could show there - something that provides more information on the plot, some details or side-characters that play their role further on or just something that we haven't seen before - then make a pre-disaster intro.
Half-Life has pre-disaster levels, but it reutilizes them later as post-disaster levels. And it's nice to see the same area in different states throughout the game. So if you can reuse these levels later, it's another reason to add the pre-disaster section.
Definitely don't make generic lab/office levels just for the sake of having them if you don't have any cool ideas about them.
As for the how long it should be, I think the HL's "Anomalous Materials" has a good length. Maybe a bit shoter is even better.
I personally enjoy pre-disaster levels, i can remember Residual Life as nice example of a pleasant intro, even though it mostly consisted of going from one room to the other. I'd say a short tram ride and Blue Shift-sized intro for total of 10-20 minutes would do just fine. I think packing maps with interations and little cutscenes will help with establishing the atmosphere and giving the place the sense of scale without having to make it too long
One interesting trend among HL mods i've noticed, that it is mostly longer BMRF-themed mods which tend to have intro maps, like RP/RL, Echoes, Visitors, etc. Otherwise they either have a short 5-minute intro, or skip to the action right away
I always have enjoyed the pre-disaster levels since they help set the tempo for everything going awry - as long they're not too tacked-on or drawn-out.
I think a really great example of pre-disaster levels is how HL Echoes does it. It establishes the layout and foreshadows the endgame areas. Bonus points if there is fun worldbuilding stuff and the places you visit remain relevant throughout the game.