Twelve Absent Men - Beta 1

Just a note on installing:

NB: Unzip the file into your common/Half-Life 2 folder

Run the first map "dew_house1" via the ingame developer console of HL2: episode 2, by doing the following:

1) Enable the developer console in the 'advanced options' of the options menu.
2)Click the tilde key '~' (top left of your keyboard).
3) Type into the box "map dew_house1" and press Enter.

At one point, the room was gassed and two metrocops were thrown in to deal with me. I managed to swerve past them into the room ahead, but the room ahead was blocked by an invisible wall and did nothing but impede my progress. But when I entered it, the metrocops disappeared.

And then nothing was happening. I had no choice but to type "kill" in the console, and I respawned about 20 minutes back before the ENTIRE turret-managing section I had just passed.

Hmm, will work on fixing that... I can easily just lock the doors to the next room. The cops are meant to knock you out FYI.

As a precaution I'll place an autosave after the turret section (a fairly logical place for an autosave regardless.)

Thanks for the feedback!

I hope i don't come across as harsh or anything, but this is what i think:
I Played through until the end of the prison escape scene which i'm assuming is the last level (noclipped and didn't see anything else). I noticed some model errors: floating beds, misplaced doors etc...

In the area with the lone headcrab, i climbed into and got stuck inside the blue dumpster. You might want to put some climbable trash in there in case someone else decides to poke around.

Lighting in general was good. I liked the HDR (dat bloom).

There's a stark lack of ambiance that really detracts from the environments. If the characters spoke, that would add a lot to the immersion. (I know faceposer is broken, and good voice actors are hard to come by)

The turret section seemed too easy to me. The combine almost didn't make it into the room. I would suggest making the combine a bit more aggressive. The whole attack seemed unorganized, and an assault like that would be more calculated.

There's quite a lot you can do with aiscripted_schedules thrown into an assault to have the combine target the turrets more. If the turrets fell more, it would be more of a scramble to replace them / fend off the attackers. On that same note, you can use battle lines for the defenders and keep them in other certain areas / make them hold points more.

The hunter was a nice touch, but again, too easy. He just ran into the middle of the room and got cut down by the three turrets i re-positioned to face the only unopened door...

I know this is a beta, it's a good start!

I don't play many SP mods, nor have i ever played through ep1 nor ep2, so i don't really have a great frame of reference to judge, but i have to say i really thought the environment was interesting and realistically detailed, if not a bit repetitive "bare" in a few areas.

I thought the gameplay was pretty difficult, but again, i don't play these types of games too often. (i really liked the player-controlled turrets btw, did you create them, or are they an existing game asset?)

I agree that some more sounds, and perhaps some music, especially at the cutscenes and combat areas, would really improve the gameplay experience and belivability in general.

I really liked the technical details like the vid screens, control rooms, and buttons, but again, i would recommend trying to make some changes to make areas visibly distinct from each other, as it all kinda looks/feel very homogenous imo.

BTW, i LOVED the apartment at the beginning! (i've always wanted to make a converted loft/studio apartment like that, nice job!)

How much time do you have into this? Even though some areas are overly simplistic, i can recognize a TON of work went into building this, and you have more discipline in your little finger than have in my whole body, to even attempt a project this big. kudos!

It's not perfect and some areas lace polish, but this definitely rates better than a 3 out of 5 in my book; 5 for balance and the balls to take something this big!

Cheers Captain Terror,

The turrets are an existing asset, I've been trying to think up some of my own gameplay mechanisms however (a self-building defence system maybe for one).

Not sure what my next step is with this, but will keep you posted.

Very interesting!

I'm infatuated with self-constructing doodads and func_tanks too, and with the flexibility of the source I/O system, almost anything possible. Hit me up on google talk if you'd like to bounce ideas back and forth =P