Audio Interview with Ludvig Kallin

13th February 2011

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

I managed to sit down with Ludvig Kallin, the maker of Call In for Half-Life 2: Episode Two and chat about its development.

Listen to the interview

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9 Comments

  1. Major Banter

    So Ludvig lives in City 17?

    2:40 Overwatch voice? I lol’d.

    Nice coup and a good listen; bar the fact that listening in 5:1 Dolby headphones means that Phillip is “on the left” and Ludvig “on the right’.

    PS: As a script-doctor, I’d be happy to be contacted through the Beta Testers Collective to proof read. I worked over 99% of the script for Joutomaa by Sauli, and that was an absolute pleasure. I love working with Dutch and Swedish guys, they’re so laid back.

  2. Miigga

    An interesting interview to listen to while mapping. I played Call In and I really like it. I’d like to congratulate the mapper for the part where you have to use a crate to reach another crate so you can then use both crates to reach an area. That one was my favourite part of Call In, for some reason.

  3. I was waiting to see if you asked about the bit where you have to chuck a grenade in through the broken glass to turn the forcefield off…I have to admit, that threw me…It wasn’t until I no-clipped through that I actually realised that was how you were supposed to do it, so I went back and did it properly…but it was bits like that I thought were innovative…a lot of head scratching and wasted ammo on that bit…lol

    1. Actually, I meant to ask him about that but got sidetracked and then forgot.

      1. mmm, incidentally, try as I might, I couldn’t get them pesky grenades to bounce in there, but a well aimed RPG did the trick alright….there was a pause and I didn’t think that had worked either, but then it opened up for me….that guy has talent, I really hope that after his “break” he does get his head down and do a bit more….as for the ending, yeah, that had me going too….but then I just thought “ahh, he’s left it open so it can be continued’…

        1. Took me about 5 tries. But I should add that it took me 10 minutes of looking around to finally see what I needed to do and 20 grenades throwing them around to the right.

          1. Miigga

            That part was probably the most annoying part of this mod besides the spelling. The hole in the glass was a bit too hard to notice and getting a grenade in there was also too hard.

  4. s.anchev

    I don’t found That puzzle hard. It was already done in other mod’s.

    The best puzzle was the first one with the 2 crates : for 15 minutes you just explore and fight and suddenly you’re blocked… At first I was trying to destroy everything ^^

  5. Finally played this tonight and listened to I thought it was a really decent first outing, though it did have some fairly serious issues that would have probably been solved in testing. Most of that has already been covered, so I’ll raise a concern with something else.

    What probably annoyed me the most was the quick and dirty ways the mod keeps you on the right path. At times it was heavy-handed to the point that the fourth wall is broken quite severely and I felt like I wasn’t left with any meaningful choices.

    During the final battle, I attempted to run through the door that led to the surface. Had I actually been able to run past those troops and make it outside, it would have been a great close call and a satisfying manner of escape. But instead I was forced to stay in the little room and die a few times before the wall vanished.

    Something similar happened after the helicopter fight. I had failed to notice that the lever building had been blown open, and was backtracking a lot to find the way forward. I jumped down into the water on the other side and was promptly devoured by leeches. Reloaded, finally found the lever… and the leeches were now magically gone. Instead of punishing players for exploring, a little more effort should have gone into highlighting the level building and sticking another fence or two on that drop-edge.

    It was a fun mod, a lot of rough edges, but the author definitely sounds like he’s taken a lot of lessons from it.

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