ModMatic: SP HL2 Map and Mod News

Guildhall mods: Deja Vudu - posted by Campaignjunkie on Tuesday July 22 2008

(This is part of an on-going series examining the single player Source mods produced by game development students at Guildhall. While we'll still look at the level design, the work process is just as interesting - they're consistently releasing stuff while the rest of the Source modding community is largely languishing. What are these "academic modders" doing differently, how does that affect their design, and what practices should we modders emulate, if any?)

Team Deathosaurus' Deja Vudu is a first person puzzle game about escaping a decrepit mansion by chasing and defeating ghosts. And it's pretty good.

• No combat: Okay, no punny title for this one, but I had to mention it - there's no combat here in the usual sense. Sure, you technically have to kill some things, but they don't really fight back. Why is that notable? Most single player mods revolve around combat and gunfire.
• Easy on the eyes: Loads of custom props and textures with mostly tasteful lighting. Overall, some very polished visuals, especially when compared against the other Guildhall mods. Kudos.
• Cohesive: The mansion floor plan is laid out and designed... like a mansion! Many designers often forget to incorporate their level theme into their map layouts - often you'll see claustrophobic warehouses incapable of storing anything larger than a cat - so it's rather pleasant when the level follows the tropes of its setting convincingly.
• Back to the future: There's a time travel mechanic that hasn't been done before in the modding community, though I feel like the team could've done more interesting puzzles with the idea (see Day of the Tentacle) - but then again they were under a time limit, which we'll discuss after the review.
• Quite trite: Some of the puzzle design is very "game-like," focusing on prying nails off of conveniently unstable beams. It's amazing how many things are boarded up in this house. You'll be willing to suspend your disbelief until you're prying nails off of a beam for the sixth time - and you thought the physics puzzles in Half-Life 2 were contrived.
• Unstable and buggy: Maybe it's just my machine, but I get all kinds of graphic corruption / crashing issues with Episode 1 SDK Base mods. Guildhall students should start using the Orange Box SDK Base. Also - the voodoo doll doesn't talk. Also - I've had to noclip a few times.
• VERDICT: A somewhat polished puzzle game. Nothing mind blowing or incredibly innovative here; but like everything we post here, it's still worth examining.
• Download! at Guildhall.edu (currently unavailable)
• Download! at games.locworks.org (temporary mirror)

Originally released in March 2008.

Interestingly, you can download the Deja Vudu asset / devplan document to get a closer look at their work process; although it's unclear how much of it was actually put into practice and how much of it was merely schoolwork to appease teachers. Still, there are some good ideas in there, namely:

• A team contract. Although obviously non-binding and useless from a legal standpoint, it could help to make expectations clear.
• Defining milestones and time constraints. This one can be more difficult to implement outside of the academic setting, seeing as most modders are hobbyists and missing a self-imposed deadline results in no penalties or consequences.
• Playtesting early. 'nuff said.
• Short game length with no feature creep. They had a small, manageable amount of content to create - and they did it.
• No cargo culting or resources diverted to publicity. I'd say most people don't even know this mod exists - but then I guess that's what blogs like this are for? - and they didn't waste resources trying to create a community or fan base... and guess what? They've released in a timely fashion!