Tagged: source-engine

Interloper and Artistry in Impressionistic Horror

  • Posted in fandom

Interloper is an unfiction ARG series for source nerds. It feels like Interloper was laser-targeted to drive me specifically insane, but it turns out that was true for a lot of people. After three years the first episode has 856k views, and the recently released final episode is a feature-length 1:54 film that earns its runtime.

Couldnā€™t ā€œsolve interloperā€

Iā€™ve been obsessing about Interloper since the beginning, and when I saw the finale I knew I had to finish it out properly. But this article is my third attempt to write something about Interloper, after spending several weeks just doing research.

My first instinct after seeing the finale was to ā€œsolveā€ it. There was an enormous amount of information available that was all interconnected and painted a picture of this huge, fascinating world. Interloper F didnā€™t answer all the questions the series asked, but surely with all the clues it gave us, someone who really understood the series would put the pieces together. Surely I could, if I gave it some time and attention.

But that didnā€™t work.

Stanley and the Death of Sourcemods

  • Posted in gaming

My first published, ā€œsuccessfulā€ piece of game content was The Raphael Parable, a little exploration game about wandering through an impossible office. I use the word ā€œcontentā€, here because The Raphael Parable isnā€™t a game per se, but itā€™s a mod for the Steam release of The Stanley Parable that bootstraps the assets and mechanics to create a totally different game.

A new version of The Stanley Parable is releasing soon: The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe is slated to be a remake with improved graphics, new endings, and console support. When I first saw this, I thought it would be a fun opportunity to go back to The Raphael Parable and tighten up some of the work that didnā€™t age well (I slapped it together pretty quickly, in hindsight, and it shows in places) as a new mod for the new version of the game.

"I love my car, I just hate my engine" Unity logo mug ā€œI love my car, I just hate my engineā€

Unfortunately, I quickly realized this was a non-starter for one simple reason: Unity. Ultra Deluxe is made by crowscrowscrows in Unity, which unfortunately stops this iterative development in its tracks. Let me explain:

The Weird Genealogy of The Raphael Parable

The Stanley Parable itself started as a mod. The original published version is a Half-Life 2 mod from 2011, of which the 2013 Steam release is an HD remix. The Source Engine, which Half-Life 2 is built on, makes it easy to author a set of new maps and release it as a ā€œsourcemodā€. Sourcemods are a fascinating artifact of Valve history, and function as a kind of mod support for source games built directly into the Steam client. Davey Wreden did exactly this to make The Stanley Parable; he took the basic 3D engine and a few generic office-themed assets and made a completely new experience.