Some of you may know about the IGF (Independent Games Festival). The festival was established in 1998 to recognize innovative independent game developers. It showcases games in many different categories, and offers prizes for the best of the lot in independent games. Among the categories is the IGF mod competition, where independently developed game mods compete for prizes and recognition.
This year, Gearbox’s own Hilary Kauder and Andrew Coggin, along with their team from the Guildhall (a graduate progam at SMU in Texas with a focus on game development) competed in and won the "Best Mod" award at the IGF ! Their team of 14 Guildhall students worked for six months developing their HL2 total conversion mod, Weekday Warrior. The mod is set in a corporate office and is modeled after "old-school" adventure games. To quote their homepage, "Weekday Warrior was designed from the ground up to have all the fun of classic adventure games with none of the frustration."
Weekday Warrior's office environment
I got a chance to bug Hilary and Andrew and ask a couple questions about their mod, and here’s what they had to say:
Ennui: What were some of the hardest challenges in creating a total-conversion mod like this?
Hilary K: The STEAM updates set us back a lot, and broke our game every week. However, the hardest thing was the programmers’ implementation of the inventory system, as well as a built-from-scratch rail camera system. Importing models was also a hassle, as we had to use an outside program to convert the files so they would be usable in our game. On a personal level, I found using Face Poser problematic because it was incredibly buggy.
Andrew C: Since Half-Life 2 is played from a first-person viewpoint, a very large amount of work had to go into the development of a robust camera system. Our camera system was also unique in the sense that it needed to view a scene from any arbitrary location and smoothly follow hand-crafted paths. It also needed to be able to focus on a character’s head during conversation. Paul Ohanian wrote the camera system and did an outstanding job with it. One of the most painful aspects of modding the Half-Life 2 engine was how much time it could take to compile the source code and then load a map to test your changes.
Ennui: What is your favorite thing about the mod?
H.K.: The mini-games were ultimately my favorite part of the game.
A.C.: My favorite thing about our mod is the fact that we were able to make an adventure game using a first-person shooter engine. I also think that our mod is really funny :)
Screencap from WW
For those interested in modding, Hilary recommends the Half Life wiki for Half Life-related endeavors. Andrew indicates that he has had pleasant experiences modding Unreal, and encourages people interested in modding to give Unreal a go.
A brief interview with Paul Ohanian, a programmer on their team, was featured on Gamasutra in December’s Road to the IGF article. You can get more information about Weekday Warrior on their very own homepage. Their site also features trailers and screenshots. To play Weekday Warrior yourself, downloads can be located on their downloads page! Check out this award-winning mod!
Congrats to Hilary, Andrew, and their entire Guildhall team! Gearbox is proud of their achievement!
