Breaking Democracy for Fun and Profit - posted by Cargo Cult on Monday November 19 2007

Please do not click on the following link. Please do not log in to ModDB and vote for MINERVA. Please do not improve my mod's ratings in the polls.

Thank you.

Edit: 2006-11-23: Also, another mod to ignore one's civic duty over - Mistake of Pythagoras. You get the idea!

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I loved my Weighted Companion Cube - posted by Cargo Cult on Thursday October 11 2007

Yes, the Orange Box has been released, and declared great by the world.

I'm alternating being distraught by the ... unfortunate departure of my poor Weighted Companion Cube, being amused by the megalomanic rantings of GLaDOS, and looking at Episode Two through envious eyes, seeing what I can half-inch for the next MINERVA chapter thingy. Which will be called Out of Time, mainly for less-pretentious-sounding reasons, and partly for alphabetical ordering ones. 'O' coming after 'M', and all that.

Feel free to Orange-Box-spoiler yourself to the maximum with the new Distractions sub-forum! If the signal-to-noise ratio ever threatens to drop to standard forum levels, we will automatically draught in further Horsemen of the Apocalypse to moderate your poor souls. The beatings shall continue until morale improves!

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Entirely gratuitous screenshots article - posted by Cargo Cult on Saturday October 6 2007

... to make up for the lack of pre-release shots, perhaps?

Enjoy!

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MINERVA: Metastasis released - posted by Cargo Cult on Tuesday October 2 2007

Two and a half years in the making, it's finally done.

Yes, this version requires Valve's Half-Life 2: Episode One to play - if you don't have it, I fully recommend the new Orange Box as a perfect way of warding off gaming scurvy. And no, I wasn't paid to say that!

In terms of MINERVA, there's a 150MB installer ready for download - and if you get stuck or would otherwise like to express your undying admiration for our dear Minerva, there's the newly invigorated forum for you to explore.

Foreign language packs should arrive soon, once again courtesy of the Sarmatia project - for now, you'll have to make do with the inferior English original.

I am exhausted. I have an unopened , 750ml bottle of Duvel looking longingly at me, ready for a triumphant one-man celebration.

Enjoy!

Edit 2007-10-02: One major issue people are having is the lack of HL2: Ep1 content in MINERVA. Make sure that Steam restarts after running the MINERVA installer, and if you haven't played HL2: Ep1 for a while, start it up to make sure all relevant files have been extracted from the GCF archive thingies...

Edit 2007-10-02: Looking for the MINERVA soundtrack additions? All available for download in stupendous-o-MP3 format at zhaymusic.com!

Edit 2007-10-03: A review! From the mighty Rock, Paper, Shotgun! Slightly spoiler-y screenshots, but fantastic ones nevertheless. My ego is close to rupturing.

Edit 2007-10-03: It appears the installer has a bit of a bug - any desktop icon it creates will try launching the new MINERVA as a Half-Life 2 mod, not as an Episode One mod. Resulting in big red ERROR models, magenta-and-black checkerboard textures and lots of other missing stuff. Launch the game from the Steam games list instead, while I sort out an updated installer...

Edit 2007-10-04: Updated installer! All links should now point there. Torrent with new download may be back up again tomorrow.

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MINERVA Development Environment, v2.0 - posted by Cargo Cult on Friday September 28 2007

Well, the iMac finally arrived a few weeks ago. It works very nicely, and is considerably faster at compiling maps than the old MacBook Pro. In fact, it's hardly had a chance to play at being a Mac - I installed Windows XP on it the evening after delivery, and it's been running the Source SDK almost ever since.

*cough* And occasionally the Team Fortress 2 beta...

Oh, and that 'MINERVA' thing? To be released on Monday evening, all going well. And all does appear to be going well!

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