MINERVA - read-only archives

locworks · **Posted:** Sun Oct 14, 2007 8:04 pm

Feel free to use this thread to plug, recommend and otherwise praise the many released creations and resources that may interest Minerva's Acolytes.

For unreleased oeuvres, see here.

[link to the Hope-o-matic]

locworks · **Posted:** Sun Oct 14, 2007 8:09 pm

Portal: The Flash Version

As plugged by Baffled on the blog.

http://portal.wecreatestuff.com/

Highly addictive! No Steam required.

TrenchFeeder · **Posted:** Sun Oct 14, 2007 8:20 pm

Half Life 2:Substance Gold

For anyone who likes the Half Life 2 story but feels that the game play could use a tweak try out "Half Life 2:Substance Gold"

It combines all of Half Life 2 with some of the characters from the "Metal Gear" series, with new weapons, and plenty of HEAVY combat encounters

http://halflife2.filefront.com/files/Ha ... tance;5284

locworks · **Posted:** Thu Nov 01, 2007 11:08 am

CSS SCI FI

Created byfitzroy_doll, CSS SCI FI offers 27 single-player missions taking place in Counter-Strike: Source maps.
Quoting from the mod's site: "Each map contains a unique scripted scenario which is enhanced by random scripting so that the game is never the same twice. Players will fight everything from Striders to slave Vortigaunts, plus a range of Combine enemies armed with many new weapons."

http://www.amphibian.myzen.co.uk/css_sci_fi/

Cargo Cult · **Joined:** Thu Feb 22, 2007 3:08 pm **Posts:** 48

Meta-plug: I'm absent-mindedly constructing another, informal blog-thing entitled ModMatic, to contain news, reviews and stuff on single-player mods and fings for Half-Life 2 and related games.

Anyone want to be an article contributor? I still need to rearrange visual stuff and templates to differentiate it more from the blog-beast that you know and love*, but it's a start.

It uses completely different database tables for everything, so it has full editorial independence. Or something!

Nesretep · **Posted:** Thu Nov 01, 2007 1:01 pm

I might be interested in participating. I am currently the Community Relations Team Lead for the Battle of Philadelphia(BOP) mod (the one that vecima is working on) and have been placed in charge of making announcements to the BOP community regarding media releases as they occur and what not. Sounds like it would be cool for those looking for another place to let people know about various new or more obscure mods worth looking at. I'll need of course to double check with vecima before going forward though. I'm sure he wouldn't mind, but it's all about timing...

[edit: added hyperlink]

locworks · **Posted:** Wed Nov 07, 2007 10:56 am

Slouching Toward Black Mesa

Yeats, dictators and freedom.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_122/2597-Slouching-Toward-Black-Mesa

Quote: "Freeman, [...] wielding his crowbar like God's wrath..."

Nesretep · **Posted:** Thu Nov 08, 2007 2:07 pm

In regards to my previous post, sign me up. I got the go ahead from vecima. He thinks it would be a great way to promote his mod. We're not quite ready to begin the media blitz yet, but we hope it will be soon that we can start making formal announcements...

[edit: Nov. 12]So when is this thing going to start, eh Adam? Just waiting to see if there is enough interest first?

locworks · **Posted:** Fri Nov 23, 2007 11:35 pm

The Cabal: Valve's Design Process For Creating Half-Life

Stunning and extremely informative.

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/19991210/birdwell_pfv.htm

locworks · **Posted:** Mon Dec 03, 2007 8:52 pm

Paranoia for Half-Life (1)

Created by Mikhail "BuZZer" Kadikov and his team, Paranoia is a long walk (with plenty of shooting, sneaking and painkillers) through the Udarnik industrial complex, somewhere in Siberia.

New bits: brand new graphic rendering engine, icky zombie and mutant models, professional soundtrack, 8000 words of dialogues.

Gorgeous bits: murals in p_bunk4

Missing bits: Gordon Freeman, crowbar, headcrabs, snow.

Self-serving bits: my team did most of the mod's RU>EN localization.

Deletable bits: opengl32.dll if your rig is struggling with the OpenGL eye-candy.

Prohibited bit: "In Soviet Russia, Paranoia plays you."

http://paranoia.level-design.ru/index_eng.htm

[edit: Mikhail asked me to fix the spelling of his family name on my moribound blog. I obliged, sent a message back to him and got a "Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently". I'm convinced that his existence on yandex.ru didn't hang on a misspelling in a movable type blog hosted (not for much longer, mind you) on a Yahoo Small Business account. Or should I become PARANOId?]

Cargo Cult · **Joined:** Thu Feb 22, 2007 3:08 pm **Posts:** 48

Cargo Cult wrote:

Meta-plug: I'm absent-mindedly constructing another, informal blog-thing entitled ModMatic, to contain news, reviews and stuff on single-player mods and fings for Half-Life 2 and related games.

Launched!

No reviews yet, mind. ;-)

Pyro-Dude · **Posted:** Sat Dec 08, 2007 12:09 am

Ooh, this looks interesting

locworks · **Posted:** Fri Feb 01, 2008 6:33 pm

ModMatic

It's quite alive, thank you very much, with a gentle rate of 4 posts per month.

For the blissfully unaware, ModMatic features single-player modification and map reviews for Valve's Half-Life 2, with more than the occasional diversion and distraction.

http://www.hylobatidae.org/modmatic

locworks · **Posted:** Tue Feb 12, 2008 12:37 pm

Anomalous Materials

Quote:

Following Gordon's misguided attempt at manual labor and its disastrous consequences, the Earth is flooded with hostile alien creatures that eventually turn the world into the U.S.S.R., circa 1963. The price of blue jeans no doubt skyrockets.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_136/2919-Anomalous-Materials

fitzroy_doll · **Joined:** Wed Oct 17, 2007 9:47 pm **Posts:** 13

Dear Esther

http://www.moddb.com/mods/dear-esther

Quote:

Dear Esther is part of a research project, creating experimental game mods, based at the University of Portsmouth, UK. The aim was to use Source to create something radically different from normal: an interactive story that dispensed with traditional gameplay and focused instead on an open-ended, semi-random narrative.

I can't recommend this enough.

In this mod you wander at a walking pace around a gloomy Hebridean island, finding clues which reveal the history of the island and yourself. The voice acting is superb and atmosphere is perfect.

It is most amusing to see the reactions to this on Moddb - most are complementary, but naturally there are many who say "no guns? lolwhut?"

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