Welcome to the second challenge from The Hammer Cup 2016, which has a Grand Prize of a NECA Gravity Gun, plus other prizes for second and third places.

This challenge contains 15 entries all with the idea of a “liberation” as the main theme.

Theme Details

Dictionary.com defines Liberate as

1. to set free, as from imprisonment or bondage.

2. to free (a nation or area) from control by a foreign or oppressive government.

3. to free (a group or individual) from social or economic constraints or discrimination, especially arising from traditional role expectations or bias.

4. to disengage; set free from combination, as a gas.

5. Slang. to steal or take over illegally: The soldiers liberated a consignment of cigarettes

That’s exactly what we want you to do! Build a map that allows the player to liberate something of your choosing. The “something” can be a person or people, an item, or anything else you can think of!

Pick any of the definitions above. We particularly like the fourth regarding the “COMBINation”.

Maybe the City 17 rebels are trapped and need your help. Maybe Alyx has been captured. Again.

Maybe you’re a car thief. Maybe you impulsively hoard garden gnomes. Maybe Barney has borrowed your crowbar one too many times.

The options are wide open, as long as you can liberate it!

As always, ask as many questions as you want, either via the comments here or privately if you prefer.

The map will be judged on how well it fits the theme AND bonus points for Design (layout, foreshadowing, secret areas, concept etc), Visuals (lighting, textures, etc), Sound (ambient sounds, voice acting, special effects etc), Gameplay (flow, exploration, 3 dimensions etc) and Misc (g-man sightings, humour, seriousness, scares etc)

Authors and Entries

This is the order within the mod.

Confusion by Flamdar

Lakeside by Marcu Alexandru AKA Melc311

Pain by Dan M.

Cemetery Valley by Joacim Rappu

Roxen Hole by Daniel Friend AKA Dannster.

Prison 16 by Sam Combs

Liberation Version 1 by Niker107

Vortessence by Ethosaur

Rebel Island by Gwydion Brain AKA Agameofsonces

Ancient Dust by Abdulhamid Cayirli AKA crowbar

Transfer by Bastion

Nova Nadeje by King Kolton9

Pigeonholm by UtharQ

A Hero Once More by Maarten Frooninckx AKA marnamai

MAMH by Jason Gimba AKA Maki

Winners and Points

Winner: A Hero Once More

Second: MAMH

Third Liberation Version 1

Full Points Allocation

Full point can be found on the public spreadsheet.

Confusion: 16

Lakeside: 21

Pain: 17

Cemetery Valley: 28

Roxenhole: 21

Prison 16: 24

Liberation Version 1: 49

Vortessence: 24

Rebel Island: 24

Ancient Dust: 36

Transfer: 27

Nova Nadeje: 22

Pigeonholm: 33

A Hero Once More: 75

MAMH: 67

Phillip Comments

Allow me to start by saying the following comments are my own and not the other judges.

Firstly, none of us agreed on the places – at least not completely. and I feel this was by far the hardest challenge to judge.

After I played MAMH, I messaged Jason and said I thought his level was the best single map I had ever played for any Half-Life game. The concept was just fantastic and its implementation was brilliant. Visually, it was just as good as anything Jason has ever released and the gameplay was top-notch too. It included a puzzle, some standard combat and a boss fight.

And I then I played A Hero Once More. Remember, I played the entries in a different order to you. Of course, you didn’t have to play them in the order of the mod, but most people do. I often play them in the order they are sent in.

Anyway, as I was saying. I then played a Hero Once More and was blown away. This is without doubt Valve quality and its pacing was just right. Visually it was great within the limits of a prison but there were story elements that MAMH didn’t have or at least NPC interaction, if you don’t count the Hunter. It was longer but that shouldn’t really be too important, although it’s hard not to take that into consideration.

For me, it came down to two different points: The theme concept: liberating a hunter and then fighting alongside it compared to liberating the player, which I felt was weaker than Jason concept. And the second point was replayability. I played both maps twice and although I marginally preferred Jason’s the first playthrough and I definitely enjoyed Maarten’s map more. There’s just more substance to it.

Of course, the concept is important, but there were other great concepts in other entries too.

The final points are close between first and second and I feel justified in awarding my places based on my thought process. My one hesitation was that replayability was never specifically listed as a judging requirement.

The last two points I would like to make is that firstly, I know the judges result doesn’t reflect the poll. I can only say that perhaps it was based on single playthroughs or the fact that many people don’t like Nova Prospekt maps.

Secondly, I am sitting here wondering what both Jason and Maarten are thinking when they read this. How would they vote. I take the role of judge seriously and although it’s only a mapping challenge on a little website and the prize is not a huge amount of money, I am very conscious of the time and effort each mapper puts in and being recognized for hard work is very important.

So, there. That’s it.

Thank you to everybody who entered and everybody who played, reviewed and voted.

Let’s hope for something as successful as this for the next challenge.

Menu Music

Brane Scan by Kelly Bailey from Half-Life 2

Video Credit

The RunThinkShootLive.Com intro video was made by ĜL1TCĦ³

Rob Martens for converting the introduction video to .bik format.

Custom Grid View Images

Fifteen grid view icons are included in this file. To use the included grid view icon, select “Grid view” in Steam (top right corner).

Right click on “LiberationVille – THC16” and select “Set Custom Image”.

Then browse to the SourceMods folder and then to THC16-LiberationVille/steam-gridview-icons folder and select the image. Then click “Set Image” and that’s it.

Of course, you can create your own custom image if you prefer.

Sponsor

This challenges is sponsored by Nodecraft – High Performance Game Servers.

You chance to vote for your favourites.

You may select up to 3 entries as your favourites.

This vote DOES NOT affect the points for The Hammer Cup 2016.



Which are your 3 favourite maps from LiberationVille?

Basic Details

Title: LiberationVille

LiberationVille Filename: hl2-ep2-sp-mc-thc16-liberationville.7z

hl2-ep2-sp-mc-thc16-liberationville.7z Size : 179MB

179MB Author: Flamdar, Marcu Alexandru AKA Melc311, Dan M., Joacim Rappu, Daniel Friend AKA Dannster, Sam Combs, Niker107, Ethosaur, Gwydion Brain AKA Agameofsonces, Abdulhamid Cayirli AKA crowbar, Bastion, King Kolton9, UtharQ, Maarten Frooninckx AKA marnamai, Jason Gimba AKA Maki

Flamdar, Marcu Alexandru AKA Melc311, Dan M., Joacim Rappu, Daniel Friend AKA Dannster, Sam Combs, Niker107, Ethosaur, Gwydion Brain AKA Agameofsonces, Abdulhamid Cayirli AKA crowbar, Bastion, King Kolton9, UtharQ, Maarten Frooninckx AKA marnamai, Jason Gimba AKA Maki Date Released: 19 march 2016

Download Options

Download to your HDD [179MB]

You can still use it with Gauge once you have downloaded it.

Manual Installation Instructions

Copy the THC16-LiberationVille folder into your …\Steam\SteamApps\sourcemods\ folder.

Restart or start Steam.

LiberationVille – THC16 should now be listed in your Library tab.

If you require more help, please visit the Technical Help page.

Screenshots

WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.

Each map has 5 screenshots.

1024 x 576 1366 x 768 1600 x 900

Reader Recommendations

Avoid It! Think Twice Maybe Play It Later Play It Now!

19 recommendations, average score: 4.84 (out of 5), standard deviation: 0.24 ( recommendations, average score:(out of 5), standard deviation: 0.24 ( what's that?

Total Downloads

7,705 Overall

5 Today

29 Last 7 days

81 Last 30 days

1,114 365 days

Meta Review Data

18 comment(s) with meta review data.



Installed:

Users

Manually: 17 Users



Using Gauge Manually: Time Taken:

Average: 3 Hours, 45 Mins

Shortest: 2 Hours by Combine007

Longest: 7 Hours by rikersbeard

Total Time Played: 67 Hours, 26 Mins Statistics based oncomment(s) with meta review data.

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