From Earth news - Water mod for Half-Life 2

What is From Earth?

"From Earth" takes place close to the year 3,000 when one woman and one man, Zenaida and Anthony, are sent to a remote alien planet. After fifty years in cold sleep, they find themselves on a recently industrialised world being hunted by an alien government. They have only their wits, athleticism and the remains of their equipment to keep them alive.

In this first person singleplayer experience, the player takes control of Zenaida Liu upon arriving on the planet. From Earth's gameplay is very much about your relationship to this world and its technology, requiring you to figure out how it all works and encouraging cooperation with the local population. Nothing about the alien technology is explained to players. It's about experimentation and learning what's what and how things on this planet work. The player also has some athletic abilities, such as climbing, wall running, hanging on ledges and so on.

A Half-Life 2 / Source Engine Mod

From Earth is a Half-Life 2 / Source Engine mod and will require a Source Engine game such as Half-Life 2, Portal, Counter-Strike: Source, etc.. The estimated release date is a year from now. We are announcing the mod now to garner some early feedback. We will try to give your monthly updates on the progress, feature descriptions that go a little bit deeper, as well as just loose thoughts on the development process.

Here's some of the features included in the modification:

First Person
Unlike our previous game Water, From Earth is completely in first person. However, the player model is always visible. When a player interacts with the world, for instance, presses a button or opens a door, it is animated and visible.

Interaction System
The focus of the game is the interaction system that includes examining and combining different items of alien technology. Players can also communicate with the aliens, allowing them to ask questions about specific items from them, or trade them.

Climbing
The player can climb, jump, and wall-run around obstacles. Finding your way through an environment creates another type of puzzle to accompany the interactive ones.

Alien AI
Some of the new AI behaviours include the way the aliens react to the player, as well as the ability to dynamically use interactive machines.

Half-Life 2: Short Stories Mod Team

The team has previously brought you such Source Engine mods as Human Error, Water and the hated Last Zombie.

The project has had a good start, but since I bought so many games in the Steam sales, I won’t have time to work on it. So, we need people to help while I go through all my new acquisitions. We are a small team and we like to keep it that way, so we want to hire people who are super talented and serious about getting into the gaming industry. We understand that other people have lives outside modding, unlike me, but it is our wish that you will become a permanent part of the team. For all positions either message on moddb or e-mail me at au-heppa@hlssmod.net.

The current team is:

Tero "Au-heppa" Knuutinen - Programming, Gameplay design, 3d modelling & animating
Daniel "CzechDeath" Tejnicky - Leading Concept Artist
Henri "Leon_Kilean" Tervapuro - Prop modelling, world texture creation
Dennis "Entru" Yaremov - Sound & Music
Colter Wehmeier - Level Designer
Adam "Blacklight" Sklar - Video Editing

Special thanks to Ross Gardner.

Level Designers
We are looking for two different types of Level Designers. Firstly, we need people that can bring existing levels an aesthetic quality, and are experienced with lighting, texturing, and the general make up in Hammer. Screenshots and/or example maps are required.

We are also looking for puzzle designers, such as anyone who has a lot of experience designing different types of puzzles for games like Portal 2. Source engine or Hammer experience is not necessary.

Concept Artists
Most of the concept work will revolve around the industrial era Alien technology and architecture. Samples of previous work required. We already have a strong set of existing concept art for you to draw on.

Voice actors and actresses
Although the script is nowhere near ready, we are looking for people to play the parts of Zenaida, Anthony, as well as the generic voices of aliens, both male and female actors. All voice actors applying should provide some kind of samples. You should be able to do big range of emotions. Some lines might be delivered at a later date.

The aliens will be speaking an alien language specifically designed for this mod. Their dialogue is partly already written and ready for recording. Examples will be provided if you are interested.

Other
We are interested on getting any help we can get, especially world texture creators and prop modellers.

Remember to check out our facebook page and our website.