In Deep mod for Half-Life

460 days passed between the most recent In Deep media update and the one before it. Between this article and the one before it, 963 days passed. I think it's safe to say that the mod has appeared pretty dead in the water. However, since November of 2018 I've been working on and off on a brand new version of the Security Complex chapter, as well as putting some more polish on the current Communications Center chapter (which has been 'near completion' for going on two years now).

I don't have any good excuses as to why 2018 was a hiatus year but in light of it I've decided to change the goals of the project just to bring something to a playable release. I've decided that making the whole Half-Life campaign in the style of the 1997 alpha is just a pipe dream and will never happen. I am going to focus on polishing the work that I have already done. As it stands right now, there are three chapters that have substantial enough material made for them that I would consider releasing them any time soon:

- Office Warrens (c1a2): My version of the 1997 Office Complex is playable from start to end, however I personally find it very uninspired compared to the one in retail. The one for In Deep is essentially a streamlined, remapped version of the one in the 0.52 HL Alpha, with very few interesting additions or changes. This could nearly be released as-is but I would be quite unhappy with it.

- Security Complex (c1a3): Almost the same as Office Warrens. It's a complete streamlined version of the chapter from the 0.52 Alpha, with not a lot of good changes. Since November I've made a brand new version of this chapter from scratch (with some other tricks in store there) but it's a long way off from being completed.

- Communications Center (c3a1): This one has always been my favorite. Since 2015 I've always treated it as the most unique Half-Life 1 cut chapter, due to the fact that almost none of it survives in the retail game. Because of this it's always gotten special attention. Unlike the two chapters mentioned above, I am very pleased with the current state of it. It's a completely redesigned from the original alpha version and (I hope) an actual fun interperetation of Valve's intentions for the chapter.

One of the other main things that stopped In Deep in the past was lack of programming. I've never made an effort to learn to learn how to modify things in Half-Life 1. I always tried to make do with Hammer logic or try to get Magic Nipples to do things for me. Neither of these are good solutions. I've started doing some very basic programming for Half-Life to make the changes that I need, and development is going a lot smoother now.

As for release plans, I'm hoping to have the Communications Center chapter done and released in March or April. The next thing to be released would be the redone Security Complex chapter, but I don't have any ETA for that.

Keep watching this page for more updates (soon-ish)!