OUTDATED statement regarding hdtf

Hi y'all,

A lot of people have been wondering what I've been up to this summer, and while I spent the first half taking summer classes and partying with friends, I spent the second half mapping extensively for myself and later on the Hunt Down The Freeman team. I haven't really spoken much of my involvement yet, mainly because I wanted to wait for the playable demo to come out and see my work come to light. Well now that it has, I'll help clarify a few details and my history in the team.

I was first contacted by the creator of HDTF on March 25, 2016 (right down there in that comment section below!). At first I was skeptical, naturally so for a guy as young as me with a lot of ambition trying to make a standalone Half-Life game. The reason I was contacted was because Berkan was interested in my map, Scrap Metal, and that he enjoyed it a lot and wanted to "license it off" of me and essentially buy the rights to editing the map on his own free will. This basically meant that I would still be attributed as the original owner but whatever his team did to edit it would be his own doing. I was strongly against this, one because I didn't want to look like a sellout and just sell away the map for money, and two, since, arguably, I know the map better than anyone else and I still have the original plans and concepts I have for the map. Scrap Metal was originally going to be a singleplayer HL2-like map, but I later adapted it into a multiplayer Zombie Survival map. Many of the early map iterations involved a lot singleplayer and horror aspects I was experimenting with way back then. So, instead of "licensing off" the map, I offered my help for no charge to do any edits and changes he wanted so that I could do them and supervise how the map would fit in the grand scheme of things.

Eventually after a bit, starting off in mid-May, I was offered the chance to join the team as a Level Designer. After my freshman year internship at a tech based startup, I figured I could give it a shot and see how the mapping worked out. I started out by making parts of a hospital map that were used for the initial trailer and originally the very first level of the game. However, Berkan and the co-creator used IndieGoGo to initially fund the game, but it was apparent that more was needed than a few trailers and screenshots to get funding for a game. This is the part I'm still skeptical on today and in general why I'm not a fan of crowdfunding. Therefore, it was suggested that an initial demo (separate from the closed beta) be released so people could see a representation of what the game had to offer. The team then focused everything towards the demo, unfortunately, I had a 2 week vacation in L.A. and San Francisco right when the demo development started, so I was in a little bit of a rush to finish the first level. Berkan is hoping that interest in the demo will bring in some of his investor friends, as he has made many business connections in L.A.

My work on the demo involved the very first level, the underground canal (which I codenamed"Comatose"), and supervision of the edits of Factory Scrap Metal. At first I thought I could handle working on all three on my own, but when I was first introduced the idea of the canal map (which in the beginning, was about 2 minutes long), I focused a lot of effort into it, since it is the first map the player will see. One of the issues I had with the team was coordinating the objectives of the map and how the gameplay actually worked out. I could make the map pretty and all with whatever effects I wanted, but the core of the game is the gameplay and the interaction between the player and the level. As a result, for much of the map, I made completely from scratch, from my imagination, relying on reference images and little planning. This is the way I created Scrap Metal, and while it is a slow process and works well for me, it's probably a dumb way of making levels and I will be more organized and methodical in the future. There were many changes made to the map in the week before release and from the period of about mid July to late August, I worked nearly full time to bring this map to light. Also note: this was the first time I mapped for essentially Half-Life 2 Singleplayer, so I had to look over and learn about the npc and sequence mechanics that made Half-Life 2 a great game (I'm normally used to GMod mapping).

Regarding the other two maps, Factory and Scrap Metal, I initially planned to edit these myself, but I let Berkan take over for much of the changes under my supervision. He came in with a rudimentary knowledge of Hammer, but after I was able to help him out, he was doing an adequate job of fixing and editing the maps, moreso with the fact that he was fitting it in his schedule along with his work with the rest of the game (programming, modeling, directing etc.) Due to time constraints, I never really got to edit these and update the aesthetic in detail, mainly for Factory due to its age. While Berkan and I did have conflicting ideas for the maps, and I personally would've liked to spend more time with them, I'm pleased with the final product that was released.

Present day and the future, I will continue working with the team towards the game's release, and my own mapping projects, however, college and family take absolute priority. One thing I do enjoy about working with team is having the flexibitlity to work on the maps whenever I can. I will try my best to provide a high level of quality and detail, and work in a more organized and structured setting to speed up the mapping process accordingly. There are a lot of things I don't agree with regarding the game, but Berkan is a great guy who knows a lot about business, and I'm sure we'll be able to get the game development going along nicely. In my spare time, I will also continue working on my own mapping projects, many of which I started working on and nearly completed during the summer, but have been quite busy recently and haven't had time to finish them and release.

You can download the HDTF demo [url=http://www.moddb.com/games/hunt-down-the-freeman/downloads/hunt-down-the-freeman-demo#downloadsform]here (I generally don't like plugging products so I will keep it to a minimum)[/url]. I appreciate all critique and constructive criticism, and if you have ideas for gameplay or level design, please absolutely feel free to add me. I will be happy to help or take advice. Thank you all for reading this giant fucking wall of text.

-Kawoofish