Release Info news

I know, many times i have talked about a release date before, which i couldn't keep each time. The last year i promised not to make this mistake again. But this was not the main reason why i didn't place updates anymore, because last year there were only 2 updates, each 6 months between each other. The main reason for this was because it started to feel to me like if i was teasing the public. Its just no fun to have to watch nice screens and videos knowing you will not be able to play it for a long time.

At June 17 TheBatteringRam commented here;

"There's no such thing as truly 'finishing' a work of art. At some point, the artist has to put an end-state to it and shove it out of limbo and into the world. If Leon doesn't learn this, then the mod is basically going to be stuck forever as vaporware."

And he was o so right. The development time of this mod is just insane and it needs to stop. I knew this for about the last year now. But were do you stop developing?

I did put in so much time and effort that i couldn't just drop the bal. So that is why it took me till now. The mod is done and fully playeble, and, bug free for about 97% or so. No crashes or major errors of some sort. Maybe a mirrorred texture or not alined one, that is it. The polishing is another thing, when i play the first 10 to 15 levels of this mod, made 3 to 5 years ago, then i do see a difference with the last 10 levels. And i have to be honest, it does take quit some effort to not go over them again and rebuild things. But that would mean another year of development. So i hope people will keep playing, even when they don't like the first few levels.

When will it then be released ?

Well, a exect date i still can't give. I will not make that mistake again. But, i can say it will be at least next month, September 2015. I hope it will be the first week of the month, but it could also be the last week of it. What needs to be done then you ask? Well, the final level is finished, i just need to place the credits in it, would be easy to just use the default option for this but that would not be in line with this mod and the first few level credits. They will be build in the final level itself, with a small easteregg at the end. Also do i need to look in to the "white flash bug" as i called it. In 4 levels you see white flashes on screen each time you get hit or damaged, (can be seen here; Youtube.com )

Took me about a half year, then suddenly, by excident i found the cause of this error. Its the enddata of the compile process. When this one is over about 105% then this bug starts to occour. Strange but true. Maybe Valve did add it to the engine just so mappers couldn't get overboard with there enddata.

To be able to bring the enddata down i need to cut those levels up in half. This way the bug is fixed, but it does mean that i need to build on a extra end and start to each of the 2 new maps now. In some cases this can be tricky but i just have no other option. Releasing this mod with this major bug is just no option for me.

I have to be honest about this update, i haven't spent as much time on it as i did with all previous ones. Normanly i take a day or sometimes 2 to make these updates but this time i just played 2 of the last 5 levels that weren't covered yet in a update. Made some screenshots and some video footage and put it all down in this update. Hope your not disapointed about this update but i rather spent now every free hour on finishing this mod as on one extra update. Still, you can see 20 new screens and about 3,5 minute of never seen before footage, so all that bad it isn't either i assume.

As always, there are some minor bugs to be seen when you look carefully, but those will be fixed before release.

Well, that is about it what i have to say. I do want to apolotiace for the long waiting, this was never my intent. The mod just kept growing with out any change of stopping the process it seemed. And ones i wanted to stop it some people started to ask some very valid questions about what they did see on the screens and movies. Seemed i made some very stupid mistakes with the story line and the overall HL2 universe. That made i had to dive in again and rebuild or add loads of stuff, what took about another year of development.

Hope you enjoy all screens, and if you can then please take a look at the video at the bottum and or in the video section, because it does show gameplay footage of different levels as shown on these screens.

Many thanks for all those who did stick with this project and kept me believing in it through awesome comments! I will keep reading all of them and will keep answering, and next month you can expect the last and final update here, with a download link.

As always do i want to thank Baltic Forever specially for his help and wisdom and technical expertice, without his help this mod would never had a change to begin with. T B Biggs for his years of friendship and suport. And ofcourse all those people who gave me there models, textures and skins to use through sites as Gamebanana.com and ofcourse Moddb and Gaming-Models.de. Each and everyone gave his permission, just so you know. Because there are always a few silly people who accuse me of steeling assets.

greetings, Leon SPYmaps Brinkmann