Audio Interview with Jim Partridge

17th December 2011

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

Just a few hours after the release of Daylight I was lucky enough to sit down and chat with Jim Partridge – its author.

We chat about his modding history, his blogs and of course the mod.

In fact, we go into quite a lot of detail about each main section.

Talking about his blogs, here they are

I also mention Intrusion, which is highly recommended.

I hope you enjoy the interview.

Listen to the interview

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7 Comments

  1. Haha nice interview.

    3:30 -> Remember the hulu project? I think it was called that.

    I agree with the story things. I think small stories in maps is better, with subtle, as Phillip said, underlying stories are epic. It seems like that with portal 2 and other valve games, you have to look for a story rather than forcing it.

    Phillip doesn’t know frogger?? omfg xD – I found the jump to the next train was fun, the ladder was a bit odd, why was it there. Maybe something clever other than a ladder could have made it better? xD

    I did enjoy the zombie arena, I didn’t notice that it didn’t make sense, even though it didn’t, the gameplay was fun.

    The water + electric was EPIC. I really felt like half life gameplay xD The pressure was fun!

    Jim, make more single-player source maps!! 😀 I love your gameplay as you can guess.

  2. Jim P

    Thanks so much…

    I certainly plan to get stuck into a new series of maps soon.
    The gameplay in Daylight really was me trying to replicate the Half Life style of play so I’m glad someone picked up on that.

    For more fun, see how many fast zombs you can take out just using the gas bottles in that arena area. It’s tougher than it looks but I’ve taken out four in one blast before….

  3. Hec

    Hey great interviw, I liked it, but maybe I was a little distracted, did you 2 talk about the Strider section in the mod, u know where the Strider chases u and u don’t have any other option there, just run for save ur ass??

    If not i’d like to know more about that section was kind of special to me the fact u can’t actually kill the Strider…

    1. Jim P

      We do talk about it a little. Phillip thought it was over too quickly…

      Background wise… I wanted to make the player run away from something. It’s very difficult to do because the natural reaction for the player is to attack the bad guys. I loved the beginning of HL2 when you’re just a guy with no HEV suit or anything. I takes about 10 NPCs telling you to run to get you moving across the rooftops.

      I didn’t have the luxury of talking NPC’s so I had to just find a way to give the player no choice but to run.

      I stumbled upon the crouch run animations while testing the striders for another section I was going to add. I loved the Spidery look of it!

      It then occurred to me that it might be nice to have the strider chase the player.

      The Strider was difficult to control the way I wanted him to. During testing, for some reason he just refused to crouch run 100% of the time. It’s still a bit buggy sometimes for me and he’ll walk while still in tall mode and barely comes close to you.

      The final jump just seemed like good fun. I wanted to have a situation where the player is almost dead, and it’s that one final leap that saves them. Of course the player skill here is to conserve your battery power so that you can make the jump. That element of gameplay happened by accident too, the run I made was just too long. When I tested it I liked the result and kept it.

      I’m glad it turned out so well but it’s really dividing opinion… some people really like it, some people think it was implemented badly or should have had music…

      I personally like it just the way it is!

      1. Hec

        Oh great thanks for the very complete explain of it!, yeah I think conserve ur battery to make the sprint could be sometimes annoying, but I see that as another element of rushing emotion, like u have no choice but keep forward.

        Hey and also I loved how your mod retake the old school HL1 elements like the fans sections, where u put some fan pits and you have to “fly” or float with the suction of the fan in order to accsess the next section, that was a great nostalgia moment out there floating iin the fan pit.

  4. Jim P

    I’m actually really proud of that fan puzzle…

    Yes I loved that fan section in HL1 too. When you have to throw grenades up and break the wooden boards to enable you to float upwards.

    What I really like about my puzzle is the fact that you move across the ceiling with the fan just inches from your head… I actually found myself physically ducking to avoid having my head cut off… LOL…

    1. Hec

      Lol!!, me too, for some reason you feel that you are going to phisically and real smashed-decapitated for that fan puzzle if it goes wrong,

      Also in the section where u have too avoid the fan from getting start again I felt a rush of adrenaline in my body, I wanted to run myself when I passed that part. 🙂

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