FAQ feature - The Forgotten mod for Half-Life

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

What is 'The Forgotten'?

The Forgotten is a single-player third-person survival horror game. As private detective Jack Dawson, you will travel to the town of Pinewood Creek to investigate the disappearance of Claire Benton.

Who are 'The Forgotten'?

They are the beings that time forgot.. lost in a world of suffering and torment...

Sounds a bit like Silent Hill, so it's a clone then?

No, no.. and NO! The Forgotten is highly influenced by Silent Hill, nods towards art direction and construction are obvious but TF is most certainly not a clone. For one thing, the Silent Hill games were aimed at a 15+ audience, TF will be very much an 18+ game with a high degree of disturbing imagery, gore, profanity and somewhat sexual content. TF is very much an adult game and influences from Clive Barker's creations will serve as a the framework for the design of creatures encountered in the game as well as influences from Blood, Forbidden Siren, Resident Evil, Max Payne, Obscure: The Aftermath and my own original ideas.

Isn't this a Source mod?

No, TF is a pure bred goldsource (Half-Life) mod. The level of detail in TF is produced to match the graphical quality of Silent Hill 2 and 3. This is done easily since TF isn't a fast paced game and the framerate wont be affected enough for it to be an issue with gameplay. Brush based objects are textured using 512x512 sheets often with several different surfaces painted into them, the same way Silent Hill 2/3 are constructed and a lot of model props are incorporated into the game too. See the apartment dissection in the images, for an idea of how environments are constructed.

Surely it would be better to make this for Source?

With double the workload/development time? I don't think so! I'm not going to be using things like bloom, parallax, occlusion or even a physics engine as TF does not use it. TF runs on a modified Half-Life engine, produced by BuZZer of the Paranoia modification team and I may add subtle normal and specular maps where needed but that will be about all.

How long have you been working on it?

Well, the very first incarnation of TF came about in 2006 and was originally named 'The Chosen', another third person horror set in an abandoned city possessed by Hell (original.. heh). That eventually fell through and then was resurrected later as 'The Forgotten', which was originally an FPS which followed a team of special forces sent into a city to repel a group of religious terrorists from opening a gateway to another world. The problem with that idea was that because you were a soldier, the whole fear and emphasis of horror was ruined because it was hard to be scared when you were carrying an M4 and grenades :P I went back to the idea of the third person survival horror and tried to make it different, I think the idea of having a private detective as the central character is something that hasn't been done before (the exception being Chthulu: Dark Corners Of The Earth, which is based upon a book written many years ago anyhow). A lot of content produced for TC and the first TF have been carried over to the current guise which has been in development now for about 3 months.

Are you the only one working on it then?

Almost, at the moment I am doing all level-design, texture and skin art as well as sound effects, storyline and dialogue. I have also taken on Umnir recently, who is working on producing a large part of the musical score. Eventually I will take more people on to work on TF but at the moment, it is not so important and I'm still busy finalising the storyline and structure of the game. That said, if you would like to help somehow, then I'll welcome it, so long as it's not level-design as I wish to do that all myself for the time being, but most certainly coders, animators, modellers, musicians and other 2D artists are welcome!

You say we explore an entire town, how big is that?

It's about half the size of the original Silent Hill map but you wont get to go everywhere. Sections are blocked off with vehicles, barricades, sealed tunnels, vehicles etc, requiring you to find either another way around or to take a different route entirely. The town uses a LOD which only loads what the player can see, with the rest fogged off to prevent slowdown. The detail in the town is much lower-res than that of indoor locations but still highly detailed. You'll have free access to a trailer park, pawn shop, condemned building and several other places as well.

What other locations do we explore?

Nate's Motel, Pinewood County Police Station, Linare's Manor, Camp Diamond Lake, Urkham Mental Asylum, The Forgotten realm and other areas that are spoilerific!

Is there much in the way of combat or do you end up running away often?

There will definitely be more emphasis on combat in TF compared to Silent Hill, enemies are much faster and harder to get around, meaning you'll often have no choice but to take them down. That said, you wont be encountering swarms of enemies, TF isn't Quake :P

What weapons are there?

There will be several melee weapons, such as a machete, baseball bat and an axe as well as standard guns like the colt 1911, magnum and shotgun, I'll also be experimenting with grenades and machine-guns like mac 10/m16 as well but I don't want to make TF too much of an TPS, think along the lines of Silent Hill meets Max Payne but with less action and no fancy moves ;)

What sort of objects and items will there be?

Jack will have a flashlight, a motion detector and a map to aid him in his journey through Pinewood Creek. He uses painkillers and medical shots to regain health. Objects be mostly notes, and special items needed to progress (ie a pair of tweezers to grab a key underneath broken floorboards).

Are there cutscenes?

Most of the cutscenes are told through graphic novel form 'Max Payne' style, but there are also in-engine scenes as well.

Is there a HUD?

I'm still debating whether to add a HUD with health and ammo indicators or leave the screen blank and use visual warnings such as a flashing red screen and shakes to indicate that Jack has taken severe damage. We'll see.

Will there be puzzles?

Of course :) I will add a fair few puzzles that you must complete in order to progress which will sometimes require you to find a certain item or items to do so.

Is there an 'Otherworld'?

There is another world in TF but it does not exist through the real world, unlike Silent Hill it is completely separate from Pinewood Creek's reality. You will visit this place several times in the game, forcing you to leave the real world for a duration.

What sort of lifeforms can we expect to encounter?

Without giving anything away, you'll come across possessed humans, creatures from another realm and at times 'ghosts' who sometimes act out scenes to help you with puzzles (if you've played System Shock 2, you'll know what I mean).

Can you tell us more about Jack Dawson?

Jack is still haunted by memories from his tour of duty in Vietnam, he is a chain-smoking middle-aged man with many demons that regularly plague his mind. Having been told he has lung cancer, Jack sees the search for Claire as a chance to redeem himself, if he can bring her back home safe and sound, God will forgive him for his sins...

Can you tell us a bit more about the other characters other than Jack?

I'm going to say nothing about them for now, you will learn about them at a later date.

Is there going to be an OST?

Yes, what I want to do is have several different artists work on the music, so we can mix up styles. I will have mostly dark ambiance in the game, with maybe some mellower tunes for cut-scenes/graphic novel sequences and possibly a couple of title tracks for the intro and end.

Is there an official website?

Not at the moment, for the time being Mod DB is TF's only home however this will probably change in the not too distant future. I certainly wont be working on that anyhow, as I can't make a decent website to save my life :P

When do you expect to complete it?

It'll be done when it's done, I can't say anymore than that!