This is the Phillip’s Blog category

A variety of post themes, including articles, ideas, stories and rants.

Follow the Phillip’s Blog releases via RSS


VerticalVille: The fifth 6×10 Mapping Competition

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

Welcome to the fifth mapping competition in the 6×10 series.

For this competition I want you to create a map with plenty of vertical gameplay.

You can have the player work up, work down, work up, then down, or down, then up – as long as most of the movement is vertical I am happy.


7th September 2012 23 Comments

A clarification of the use of Recommendation Images

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

Just wanted to take a moment to clarify the use of Recommendation Images.

I believe some users haven’t read the guide to using them and maybe don’t fully understand the reasoning behind them.

Let me start by explaining why I created such a unique system.


22nd August 2012 15 Comments

7 Images that inspire map ideas: Part 1 – The 7 Series

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

I’m not a mapper or modder (yet) but that doesn’t stop me from imagining maps when I see certain images or photos.

These 7 photos are ones that when I saw them I thought “Mmm, that might make part of a cool map.”

They are not in a particular order.

I should mention that no consideration has been made for engine limitation. I understand that engines can’t create everything in the images, but that doesn’t mean a clever modder couldn’t use the idea as simple inspiration, hence the title of the post.

All the images enlarge.

If you have images that do the same for you, please add a link in the comments.


20th August 2012 10 Comments

A chat with the developers of “The Core”

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

Pocket tens!! I can’t believe he only had pocket tens!

We are on one of the tables at the Venetian, in Las Vegas. James, Andy, a few rabbits and I have been playing poker for a few hours now and I’ve been losing – mostly, but that’s all part of my plan!

It’s coming up to 2:45am and Andy seems to be coming into his zone, I’ll have to be careful. I need to get them off balance.

“So, what you guys been working on?”, I say as casually as possible.


19th August 2012 5 Comments

I want your Steam Tricks and Tips

With the recent news about the new community features for Steam and the Grid View Icons I got to wonder how effectively I use Steam.

I started to use categories and found they only seem to be visible in List view and then I wondered how many other features I was missing – just like I wonder for users of THIS website.

After all that thinking I decided to write an article about using Steam effectively. So, as well as my own research and investigation, I would like to harness the readers’ experience and knowledge!

Please send me you tricks and tips for getting the most out of Steam and I will post as much as I can. I may even create a video instead, as it’s often easier to see these things in action, rather than just read about them.

I would prefer an email but you could also post a comment. Just know that this is a temporary post and will be deleted once the article/video has been published.

TIA!


16th August 2012 12 Comments

Custom Steam Gridview Icons

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

Back in April of this year, I wrote an article called 7 Things I wish Steam would allow me to do. Well, number 7, or part of number 7 is now available and since I only recently found out about it, I thought you might have missed it too.

It’s a feature called Custom Steam Gridview Icons and it allows you to add or replace the images you see for ANY game or application you have added to your library.


14th August 2012 10 Comments

Aurora Effect – Half-Life – In Development Mods

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

Explore again the Black Mesa Research Facility from the point of view of Jorge Barrett, a maintenance employee of the facility. Today should be one day just like all the other, but what lies ahead?

There’s a new codebase which allows new graphical features. However the changes, fixes and additions are enormous, so you will discover them slowly as more updates are released.


6th August 2012 6 Comments

ForestVille: The fourth 6×10 Mapping Competition

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

Welcome to the fourth mapping competition in the 6×10 series.

For this competition I want you to create a forest environment.

One of the great things about Episode Two was the forest areas. They were fun to play and gorgeous to look at.

Now I recoginze that making beautiful forest scenes takes a long time, but I’m not expecting large areas. How you use the forest is up to you.


3rd August 2012 32 Comments

Audio Interview with Magnar Jenssen plus Live stream

Just to let everybody know that I will be having an audio interview with Magnar Jenssen on Saturday 4th August at 2:00PM GMT. That’s 3:00PM Central European Time. Please check your local times.

In addition to recording and posting the interview on here, it will also be streamed live on the Podcast17 YouTube channel.

Enjoy!


31st July 2012 14 Comments