Work in progress Awake - Mod in progress, need critique

**EddieShoe** · 07-05-2012, 05:40 PM

I hope this is the right place to post this, if not I'm sorry! (Note before reading: I was in a hurry so the text might be a little weird, I hope you understand my point at least.)

Anyway, to get to the point. I've just started to work on a Custom Story called "Awake" (I didn't find any other mods called this, just "Wake"). The story in short: It's a bit of a story where you investigate what happened and why you can't remember anything, you wake up next to your bed with a headache. It's pretty much like the original story, you forgot everything.

At the moment the story isn't completed, or the so called "script". But I'm working on it. I've started to work on the first 2 maps, but only the 1st one is over 75% completed. I don't want it to be one of those "hurr durr monsters chasing you everywhere", instead I want scares from the enviroment and focus on the ambience. I can tell you that this has not been so successful so far, but I'm gonna have some maps be more horrific than the others instead and hopefully I'll have the time to remake the first one a bit.

So far I've almost completed the first one, it's called "Test.map", I'll change the name later because at first I didn't expect myself to actually progress this far, but the great community helped me with all the useful tutorials and quick replies on the forum. The map still misses a lot of DECALS and PARTICLES, I wanted to progress quickly so I can polish the big, beautiful details after. Also, the billboards are ugly! Really ugly! But like I said, I wanna make some progress first and polish later. The 2nd map is not even close to complete, I just made it quickly to see how the level doors transition works. For example, the roof's missing in the first room... I was in a real hurry so I had to finish the 2nd room's basic layout.

The same goes for some of the messages and stuff, they may make no sense at all so please remember MOST OF IT WILL BE CHANGED!

Now, what I want from you guys is to try the map and give me some constructive critisism, by that I mean you may tell me "this is not good" instead of "omg it sucks" etc. And if something's bad, tell my why and how I can change it! I realized after reading that people do not like "flying jesus" with the iron maiden sound effect anymore, which I actually had so I replaced it. Most of this can be seen in the .HPS files.

I can't come up with anything else to say at the moment, I know it's a lot of text but I wanna tell you how the situation is before people are like "lol it isn't done" or "wth the 2nd map is like 10 sec long". I just wanna see what the community wants before I progress too far because it's harder to change the maps after.

Here's the link: Awake - by Eddie Shoe

If I got this right, just make a folder called Awake in custom_stories and extract the files there. If it's not starting (it does for me, but you never know...), just tell me and I'll look into it!

**kartanonperuna** · 07-05-2012, 06:59 PM

Oh I see.The boring ol' story beginning.Where am i?What happened?Turns out you have german gay disco in your basement and youre like oh now I remember then you gotta escape the whole place but then one of the gays catch you in the woods and shove it right up the ass and keeps pumping it for eternity.

Or something like that.

**EddieShoe** · 07-05-2012, 07:19 PM

(07-05-2012, 06:59 PM)kartanonperuna Wrote: Oh I see.The boring ol' story beginning.Where am i?What happened?Turns out you have german gay disco in your basement and youre like oh now I remember then you gotta escape the whole place but then one of the gays catch you in the woods and shove it right up the ass and keeps pumping it for eternity.

Or something like that.

Haha, that made me laugh a bit. So, basically what you're saying is that it's a bit cliché? I'll look into that, thanks.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that if you would've read the script you would understand, but I havn't posted it here. I had a great idea but now I realize that it's been used too much, I'll see if I can come up with a new idea.

**kartanonperuna** · 07-05-2012, 07:24 PM

Yeah its definately a cliche in custom stories.

**EddieShoe** · 07-05-2012, 07:28 PM

Between, I looked at your custom story. If I've understood it right you like to make creepy atmospheres as well? If you want to and if you've got the time, could you help me with some good ideas? Just like a short list with good things to think about while making the map. I'd really appreciate it.

**kartanonperuna** · 07-05-2012, 08:10 PM

I havent really focused on horror in my story.Just a bit eerie atmosphere.Not sure if Im such good fella giving advises.I'm still just a newbie.

**EddieShoe** · 07-05-2012, 08:15 PM

(07-05-2012, 08:10 PM)kartanonperuna Wrote: I havent really focused on horror in my story.Just a bit eerie atmosphere.Not sure if Im such good fella giving advises.I'm still just a newbie.

Alright. I'll wait and see if someone else says something about it, and I'll look into the story. Thanks!

**SonOfLiberty796** · 07-05-2012, 09:10 PM

One thing you have to be careful of is the story you are doing. the "waking up and not remembering anything" stories get the "hammer" now-a-days if you know what I mean.

They are "overused", in which I can agree a bit. In fact, I actually created a custom story that came out like 2 months ago, but during the development of it, the story wasn't "overused". However, when days passed by, more and more stories kept coming out and the same "waking up and not remembering" types of stuff kept coming. Unfortunately, the time when it became overused is when I was about to release my custom story (pretty much around this year, I'd say maybe around March and so on is when people noticed it started getting over used) so mine got the "hammer" you could say. I mean, there wasn't anybody criticizing that my story was an overused one, but I already knew it was. I didn't want to abandon it, ether.

So moral of the story is: Be careful when making a "waking up and not remembering" type of story. Maybe you can use the same story type, except make it a bit more "interesting" and "unique/different" like letting us, the Players, play a part where it shows how he started not remembering anything, THEN get to the real story.

**EddieShoe** · 07-05-2012, 09:22 PM

(07-05-2012, 09:10 PM)Xvideogamer720X Wrote: One thing you have to be careful of is the story you are doing. the "waking up and not remembering anything" stories get the "hammer" now-a-days if you know what I mean.

They are "overused", in which I can agree a bit. In fact, I actually created a custom story that came out like 2 months ago, but during the development of it, the story wasn't "overused". However, when days passed by, more and more stories kept coming out and the same "waking up and not remembering" types of stuff kept coming. Unfortunately, the time when it became overused is when I was about to release my custom story (pretty much around this year, I'd say maybe around March and so on is when people noticed it started getting over used) so mine got the "hammer" you could say. I mean, there wasn't anybody criticizing that my story was an overused one, but I already knew it was. I didn't want to abandon it, ether.

So moral of the story is: Be careful when making a "waking up and not remembering" type of story. Maybe you can use the same story type, except make it a bit more "interesting" and "unique/different" like letting us, the Players, play a part where it shows how he started not remembering anything, THEN get to the real story.

Yeah, I'll spend most of the weekend trying to make up a good story. An intro, like you said, was one of my biggest ideas. I've already got a good twist in the end that could be used perfectly with the story, but I don't wanna spoil it here. I think it could turn out well, if not almost perfect!

Thanks though for being positive and trying to help, finding people like you guys is like finding a needle in an... ocean. The internet is so weird these days. Undecided

EDIT: Between, has anyone tried the map? I'd like to know if my map layouts works well. Is it too linear, big, etc? Thanks in advance.

**Traggey** · 07-06-2012, 09:21 AM

(07-05-2012, 06:59 PM)kartanonperuna Wrote: Oh I see.The boring ol' story beginning.Where am i?What happened?Turns out you have german gay disco in your basement and youre like oh now I remember then you gotta escape the whole place but then one of the gays catch you in the woods and shove it right up the ass and keeps pumping it for eternity.

Or something like that.

Yeah Kartan, don't do that.

Cheers.