13 September 2017

Time flies, my latest Half Life 2 mod, called "Episode 3; The Closure" is now released about 1,5 year ago. Over time i did update the mod twice to version 2.0, the changes are very small, there were no real bugs to fix. Also have i released all my source .vmf files from ALL my Source mods. The .vmf files are the actual map files, so people can now open them in the Hammer editor and see how i made things work or just for fun so they could play with them or change things. See for downloading the mod the "SP-maps" page on this site, under Half Life 2. The mod is avaleble on many different sites in many different countries. There has even been someone in Russia who made a box for the mod and sells it now through the internet, which is fine with me. The more people play it and like it the more i am pleased. I don't need money for my work. The overall download count of this mod comes around 150.000 as far as i have been able to track, and keeps being downloaded around 100 to 250 times a day at least. And in the weekends this number goes even up to around 400 or higher. Never expected such a huge success. On Youtube many people did upload walkthrough video's of the mod. The overall comments are the same, it is not a real Ep3 HL mod, it doesn't follow the lore, etc. Which is all true, but that was also never my intension. I just wanted to make a fun Ep3 mod, which now i was able to make it. Reading most comments you should think that it isn't well receeved but that is far from because the numbers show differently. People judged the mod around 4 out of 5 and 7,5 out of 10. Which is really rather good when i may say so myself. After having the mod updated for the last time i stopped all together with mapping and modding. Which is rather strange for me because the last 17 years or so i ALWAYS was working on some mod or another. But, it just takes to much time and effort and i am at a place in my life were i simply can't spent that much time anymore on it. Ofcourse will i map and or mod in the future, just haven't found a good game to do so with. And to make a 6th Source mods is not a real challange anymore for me. All in all i mapped with Source for around 11 years or so, which is probably far more as any other mod ever did, lol.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-closure

Leon (SPYmaps) Brinkmann

6 June 2016

"Half Life 2, Episode 3; The Closure" has been released !

For about 2 months now its out there and already has it been downloaded for about 10.000 times. As always with my HL2 sp-mods, are there people who love them, and who hate them. Mainly because there is a hard core HL2 community that hates it with great lenght when HL2 mods are not following the HL lore. Still, the overall feeling is good and reviews overall recommendates a averadge score of 3.8 out of 5 and 7.4 out of 10, which is quit good. There were some small issues with the mod, nothing game breaking. That i fixed with 2 patches, (version 1.0 and 1.1). Some people seem to play Hl2 and mods with a higher FOV (Field Of View), which caused some graphic issues. Ones those were fixed i released the last and final version of this mod, called version 2.0. Should you have a earlier version of this mod running then please update it to v. 2.0

You can find the mod and the latest patches on Moddb and RTSL;

http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-closure
http://www.runthinkshootlive.com/posts/episode-3-the-closure/

Leon (SPYmaps) Brinkmann

 

2 September 2014

My last update here was on 18 december 2012, ?!?!?! That is almost 2 years ago!! I am in shock to read this. Many people have probably seen this and thought that i am dead, or don't work on anything anymore. And nothing is further from the thruth because i am still working very hard on my latest project, the HL2 ep2 sp-mod; Episode 3; The Closure By now i am working full time on this project for 4 years in a row. This is by far the biggest and most detailed project that i ever made and i am quit pleased with it myself. And i can't wait to hear what people think of it ones they can play it. Ofcourse have i been releasing a lot of news update about it on Moddb.com and the comments are great so far. Well, there is not much to say else other then i am sorry it took me so long to update my own site. Ones The Closure is released i will invest more time in this site, to make it more apealing. You can find all the info, screenshots and movies of The Closure here;

http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-closure/news/hl2-ep3-the-closure-inside-the-borealis

Leon (SPYmaps) Brinkmann

 

18 December 2012

 

There wasn't much to say the last half year, other then i still am working hard, dayly, many hours on my latest HL2 ep2 sp-mod called Episode 3; The Closure.

That is why i didn't add anything new here, but, after nearly 3 years of delegated work the mod is now finally in its final stage of development. The mod has a total of 17 maps till now, but maybe i need to cut the final map in two because of the huge size and detail, and that would then bring the mod on 18 large maps. I really did try to release this mod in December, but that wasn't possible. Like all other modders and developers know, does real life sometimes things that make that you can't spent as much time as you hoped you would do on the development. So, now it looks like it will be January for the release of the mod. What is a good date for a mod release because of the holliday most people have. Well, there isn't much to say yet. I want to keep it all for the release of the mod that really will be soon now. It is also time for it, after nearly 3 years of daily hard work. (why o why do i do these things? lol)

 

20 January 2012

Last time i added a update here was 29 March 2011, what is nearly a year ago! There was not much else to tell as that i still am working on that last (5th) Half Life2 SP-mod called Episode 3: "The Closure". ("TC") (this is a HL2 Episode 2 sp-mod !) The last 2 months i haven't been very active with modding because of severel normal life events, there was even a small time that i doubted about finishing this last mod. But this would then be the first mod i didn't finish in 12 years, and that is something that never may and can happen, so even when it was only for this reason i still have to finish "TC". But of course are there more reasons, for instance that it would have been a waste of time and effort. Because the mod is done for about 85%. So, in this new year i will start again with fresh effort to complete this new sp-mod. It still will take at least one full month to complete it, so please do follow it's process on Moddb, where i upload from time to time new screens, movies and general info;

http://www.moddb.com/mods/rooftop-retreat

(on Moddb it is still known under its working title "Rooftop Retreat")

 

 

29 March 2011  ( R I P Jasper/ lead beta tester)

Time goes on, and the last time i commented here was months ago so it was time to say something again. I know i have said on several forums and sites that Final Project Diary would be my last HL2 (ep2) sp-mod for now and that i maybe would start with HL2 mapping when ep3 would be released, or a fully new HL(3),(although i don't think that Valve will ever make a full new HL game, at least not in the next 5 years or so. And a new episode (3) also is still far away, because till today they haven't even started working on it.

Why then still start with a new HL2 ep2 project you ask, well, i just missed mapping, a whole lot! And Planet Phillip has a new mapping contest, called Rooftop ville. So i just thought, i make one or 2 maps for it, maybe i even win a price. Now we are a month or so further after the contest mod is released and we all know that Phillip only gave one prize to the number one, and not followed up on his promise of naming a 2th and 3th place. And that i didn't win, what is ok. I knew up front that Phillip doesn't like my maps/mods, so the chance of winning was slim to nun. That said i decided to build on to these 2 maps that i did sent in, because i was back in mapping and it felt great. I have given it the working title (for now); Rooftop Retreat. By now 4 maps are fully finished and i am working hard on the other 2 to 3 maps that it will have. Although the last few weeks have been slow with mapping, my lovely cat is very sick (probably cancer, what means she has to put to sleep, but this is still not sure. so i sit most of the time beside my cat instead of my pc). And to make sad news complete, Jasper has died 8 days ago on Monday the 21th of this month March 2011. He was for more then a year my biggest beta tester and did excellent work as such. We even talked about that he wanted to do more for the dev. team, and my suggestion if he would consider looking in to creating textures was received enthusiastic by him. But it never came to that, he died way to soon, in his early 60ties. He is missed by the team and i wish his wife and family all the strength they need to overcome this sad news.

I do try to update my Rooftop Retreat page on Moddb each week with new screens, movies and news, you can find this all here;

http://www.moddb.com/mods/rooftop-retreat

 

8 October 2010

Finally we have reached the big day of releasing the 4th Half Life2 sp-mod called Final Project. As you could have read over the months was it a huge task to get it working well and in this bug free finished state due to that steam update. But, now it's all well working and the first comments on it are great. This was the last project that i have done with Half Life2, (or it's episodes). Maybe when ep3 is released i will map again with it but for now i think that this will not happen. Because valve keeps updating its engines while people mod with it, and i will NEVER have to experience that again. Beside that there are so many new good games around that i want to work with, and i have been mapping and modding for more then 6 years now with HL2, so it really is time to move on. The last 0+ years i have filled with mapping and modding, but i always wanted to make a game of my own. And it seems that this time has come now. Before the engines where not that user friendly that this was a real option, but the last year there have been several engines that makes it possible for indie developer to start with there own game. For now i am looking at the latest version of UDK, and the Crytek Sandbox engine. I would love to make a first person shooter games as first game, but maybe that is a bit to much to start with, another option would be to make first a old school top down shooter, always loved those games and it would be a good practice. So, the next few months i have to see what i will do next, i have to experiment with different engines and editors and see what is possible, Still, i probably will always make a few new sp-maps with new games that are released. So, just check from time to time here to see what is the Last project that i am working on next.....

5 september 2010
Again a half year has past and still is Final Project (FP)(HL2 ep2 sp-mod) not released.
As you can read did i close my comment of 1 Arpil 2010 with the line;
"...History has proven it is always impossible to predict a release date in advance, but i am aiming for the first week in april."
How true these words are is shown immediately. but, the delay couldn't be helped, it is not my fault but Valve's.
Just before FP would be released did Valve release a new update from HL2 without announcing it. like most of the times was also this update of Valve heavily corrupted, (yes, corrupted!). it made HL2 and HL2 ep1 look like HL2 ep2, what in itself is a good thing, but at the same time did it mean that FP, what was a HL2 ep1 mod, suddenly changed in to a ep2 mod. and this caused huge problems. at the same time did it make that most released mods until then suddenly didn't work anymore. like i said was this not the first time that Valve 'surprise' us with such garbage, but before they always fixed the errors within the update in the weeks and months after it. but now they decided that the modding community should take care of this. in short, it took us 5 whole months to completely rebuild our mod from ep1 into the ep2 version, and at the same time did we need to fix all the errors in the update of Valve. all in all was this a very frustrating time and several times it went through my head to just forget about this whole last mod. but then i thought, that that would then be the first time that i didn't finish a mod, and that because of reasons NOT caused by me but by a outside party, (Valve). and that was something that i would not let happen. FP was already the last project that i would make with HL2, but now i know for sure that i will not soon start any other sp-mappack and or mod with any Valve game released soon. the way they treet people is unbelievable!!
Well, where 6 months further down the developers road and FP is finally done. but not released yet.
If all these troubles where not enough, my power supply broke down from my computer, just in the week that FP would be released!! (strange thing is that the same thing happened with the release of Strider Mountain, then my video card broke down. normally replacing a power supply takes about 1 hour, but my Dell pc has a very special one and that takes about 1,5 week before i get it. so we decided to hold the release back until my pc work again, what should not take more then a week from now. so , FP is coming, hopefully within 1 to 2 weeks.
but;
"...History has proven it is always impossible to predict a release date in advance, but i am aiming for the first week in april."

 

 

1 April 2010
It has been a full half year that i updated this "last project" page for the last time, a real shame !! sorry for this delay. it's not that i haven't been mapping anymore, because i have, in fact, i have been mapping like crazy. and it does please me very much to say that it's nearly time to release again another new HL2 sp-mod !!! the working title was "Final Horror", but after a few maps it was clear to me that it wasn't possible to make a real scary mod. also did the focus of this mod remove from horror in the first few maps to "whatever i always wanted to map but never came around to it." so now it's called "Final Project". this doesn't mean i will never map after this one, it just means that this is my last and final Half Life2 (HL2) mod or mappack, for now. should Valve decide to release in the future a new Half Life (3), then for sure i will pick HL(3) mapping up again. but for now i have made over 40 sp-maps with HL2, so it's time to move on. i think i can release Final Project, with 9 large sp-maps in the beginning of April 2010, what means in a week or so. history has proven it is always impossible to predict a release date in advance, but i am aiming for the first week in april.

6 october 2009
It took more then 2 years and 8 months to make Strider Mountain (SM), and it seemed that SM would never be released at all. Because each release date was delayed. To stop this process of delaying the release date we decided to no talk anymore about the release untill it was actualy released. And now that date has come, finally SM is released !! It was actualy released 3 weeks ago but there were some bugs that needed to be fixed first. Please check my SP_maps page for a download link, or wacth some movies of SM in the movie section. Should you want to have more info about SM then please visit the SM website, (StriderMountain.com), there were have lots of info, screens, movies, background info and forums were you can leave a comment if you want.

23 january 2009
As you probebly have seen is this site quit outdated right now, and i am really sorry for that but last year i have used all my free time on the new Half Life2 sp-mod called Strider Mountain(.com). it was planned as a small 4 to 5 sp-maps mod but while i made the maps the story grow larger and over the last 2 years it became a HUGE project. its now almost finished, we release it first as a pre release what are the first 5 maps of the mod, a month later we release the full 15 sp-maps. it will be simular to Coastline to Atmosphere, the project Baltic and i made before SM, but with this difference that it will be better, even larger as CtoA allready was, (maps are really huge, and the amount of 15 maps will take probebly around 10+ hours to play it at least. one major difference is that SM will not be that hard as CtoA was. some people thought it was a bit to hard. i have to agree that CtoA was made like how i love my games, quit hard. but, to make SM for an even bigger public atractive i decided to make the maps not that difficult anymore. it will still have puzzels etc, but the amount and power of the enemies will be less. please visit StriderMountain.com when you want to read more, see screens and/or movies of the maps, or learn more about the release date, you can also access our forum for asking questions or comment on SM if you want, you find the link on our site. please check in around feb 2009 for the release date, probebly its already released by then.

1 march 2008
After more then 14 months of hard work, and 11 very large and detailed sp-maps further we are nearly finished with the 3th HL2 sp-mod. Please check for the latest release info our Strider Mountain.com site, but it looks like we will release this new project this month, March 2008.

 

1 november 2007
The latest that i am now working on is a 3th HL2 sp-mod, called Strider Mountain. Normally i don't make more then 20 maps or so with a game, by then i have used all it's futures so many times that it gets annoying to work with. and by then there are a lot of good new games released that i want to map with. By now i thought i would already map with Crysis, but Crytek delayed the release date of Crysis twice. that's a shame, but it's always better to wait with a release so the game is fully done. to many game developers release games with bugs and errors that have to be solved with patches afterward. glad Crytek doesn't choose for that way of working.
because Crysis was delayed i needed to look for a game to continue with in the mean time, and start learning mapping with another game that i never mapped with before would take to much time. i only had a few months in between. so i choose for a 3th HL2 sp-mod, together with some friends who do the modeling and optimization of the maps that i build for it.

 

15 oktober 2006

When i first did see cutscenes of the Prey fp shooter i loved the game, it has so many new futures in it that was never shown before in games that i realy wanted to play it. so i bought the game and ones i had it i wanted to sp-map with it. i started with the first sp-map and pretty soon, (like always) was the map getting to big. What could cause fps problems for some not so powerful computers, so i did cut the map in 2 and build on to both of them so they would make a 2 sp-maps mappack. Ones they where finisht i thought it was enough and i didn't want to add any other sp-maps to it. Main reason for this is because the editor and the way the game is rendert is simular to Doom3/Quake4 mapping. This means that the more light there is the lower the fps are, it's rendert with lightning, (that's why these games are always so dark). and i simply love bright maps with here and there a dark spot, instead of dark maps that have to be walked though with a torch, (i hate that, when it happens all the time, waiting untill your flashlight is full again).

 

8 september 2006

After a full year of very hard work the HL2 sp-Mod (15 sp-maps) called "Leon's Coastline to Atmosphere" was released, (please see download section for downloadlink).

 

10 april 2006

Simply because no one else made a Cod2 sp-map i decided to make one, also because i made in the past 6 sp-maps with Cod(1) i thought it would be nice to make an follow up on this with a Cod2 sp-map.

 

11 march 2006

For a week or more i am now mapping with Fear, i know that the game is more then a year old and normally i don't sp-map with such 'old' games, (because not many people will have those old games installed anymore, what means that not many people will play your maps. and lets be honest, when you put in as much time in mapping as i do, you also want to have as high download counts as possible). But i love Fear so much that i simply had to map with it. The reason that i didn't map with it when the game was released was because i was then working very hard on my HL2 sp-projects. The last week i have been learning for hours at a day how to work with the Fear SDK (development kit = editor), called WorldEdit. i have mapped with a whole lot of editors, (as you can see in the Editor section of this site), but i never mapped with this one. and it always takes a week or 2 to get around in a new editor. Just the other day i am able to fool around with the AI (artificial intelligence, figures in games). The Fear AI is especially great, and i think it's even better as the ones in DOOM3, Quake4 and HL2, (yes, even HL2).Its'simply amazing what the Fear AI can do, but, that takes that you have to learn and understand how it works. So, that's where i am now. I just have found my way around in Fear mapping and have started 2 days ago with my first Fear sp-map. I asume that it will take me a week or 2 to release my first sp-map. Please check from time to time on this site to see my latest developments, that is, when you're interested in (my) sp-maps.

 

should you want to contribute with thoughts and or comments on Strider Mountain then please go to our forum;
 
http://www.stridermountain.com/
 
or watch the teasermovies or screens of this new sp-mod.
this new sp-mod will be released around december 2007.
 
Leon (SPY-maps) Brinkmann.