Progress Report 01 news - Half-Life 2: Alternis mod for Half-Life 2: Episode Two

Welcome to our first Progress Report.

Hey there!

I'm aware I'm a bit overdue and It's been a bit more than 2 months since the last article was published, but that's mostly because I really wanted to finish up d1_canals_01a before posting this article and it dragged on quite a bit.

Speaking of maps however, let's get straight into this month's Progress Report.

d1_canals_01

Starting off with the first map in Route Kanal, the first few weeks of these 2 months went towards finishing up the detour on this map.

Here are some screenshots showcasing a few locations:

After you leave the warehouse you'll enter a small stretch of service tunnels which will eventually lead to a set of two collapsed underground tunnels co-joined by a small maintenance area.

You'll eventually discover that these tunnels open up to a basement storage area and an underground electrical substation, which you'll have to operate in order to restore power to the elevator and ascend from these depths.

That's pretty much all the stuff I haven't covered yet in regards to d1_canals_01, and I obviously wouldn't want to show off absolutely everything in these maps since that'd just ruin the fun.

The map itself is in what I'd call a "Mostly Finished State" which basically just means that the map is completely functional from start to finish and everything works as intended, It might just need a few improvements here and there detail wise, more optimization, improved brushwork ..etc that sort of thing.

These will all be taken care of down the line of course, since I'm the type of person who's never fine with the final state of any project I've ever created, I always feel like there's something to improve, something to polish up, and that includes these maps too.

The current goal is to get all the maps I modify into this "Mostly Finished State" until I have enough that I could release a few as a demo for example, then polish those up and then put them into the demo and publish it, but it'll be quite some time until that happens.

d1_canals_01a

Here we are, the map that caused this entire article to be delayed, the map that took up the 80% of those 2 months, the map which I stupidly kept adding to not realizing how much longer it would take to finalize.

This map features the longest, most diverse, and most combat-heavy detour so far. (Probably due to the fact that there's only one other finished map besides this one.)

Introducing d1_canals_01a:

Now the first thing you might notice is the addition of a combine sliding door on the side of the canals where you'd have to pass by normally, and the second thing you might spot is that the entire collapsed highway that used to be here is now gone.

Now there's a very good reason for this which I now feel obligated to explain, so bear with me.

In retail Half Life: 2 you navigate along a train track in the previous level which you subsequently jump off at the end into the canals below, just before a razor train plows through and covers your escape.

Now the thing is, there's been a bit of an oversight on Valve's part here, since in the next level (which is this one) the very same track that the razor train passed through on in the previous level about 5 minutes ago is now covered up by a huge piece of broken highway which the train couldn't possibly have gone through, (or if it did it would've left a hole in it atleast).

So this is why I've opted to remove this entire piece of highway, but I've kept the destroyed portions of the ground and made it seem like the combine "patched it up" so trains could operate safely on these tracks.

With that out of the way, we can continue.

The rest of this area plays out normally up until the point you'd try and escape through those tunnels beneath the train tracks which as you'll now notice have collapsed, forcing you to take a different route straight into a small Civil-Protection squad supply room which just so happens to be connected to some concrete corridors.

From here you'll emerge into a small neighborhood, at the end of a dead-end street, complete with a shack and a total of 2 houses, one of which is completely decorated and explorable.

But once you've taken a look around you'll quickly notice that there's a combine gate blocking your way which you must disable.

However some Civil Protection units seem to have turned this house into a de-facto base of theirs and you must deal with them in order to advance.

Here are a few screenshots of the house and its surroundings:

After you successfully disable the gate you'll end up in the backyard of an old electrical company's warehouse building, where you'll have to pass through a typical "electrified maze" obstacle, and let's be real this wouldn't be a true sourcemod without one. (Although this one may or may not have a bit of a twist involved.)

After you survive that, you'll enter the building itself where you'll have quite the explosive ending to your detour.

After that, you'll be back on track down in the canals just as you were in normal Half Life: 2.

Here are a few extra screenshots:

That's about it for what I'm willing to show off, obviously I wouldn't want to spoil everything here either, but what you've seen is pretty much the gist of it.

Thanks for reading!

That's it for this Progress Report, I know this doesn't seem like much and I'm not exactly happy with how much work I could invest in this project these last 2 months, but then again I'm working on Alternis whenever I reasonably can.

Anyhow, In the following 2 months I'll work on the rest of Route Kanal, although I'm not entirely sure what I'll do with d1_canals_02 yet, (if you have any suggestions let me know.) I'll definitely have to redo the "Powercut" mechanic on d1_canals_05 though, because let's be honest, right now It's god awful. If I'll get to that before the next Progress Report I'll update the video on the mod page, so look out for that.

In any case, that's it for this Progress Report, thanks for reading, and have a nice day.