Source Engine Mod-Mentality

[THIEF!]

Check out the mod that a bunch of us have been working on. It’s a psychological horror FPS where the protagonist slowly loses his mind, giving us the opportunity to create interesting gameplay based around his warped perceptions. We’re using Source Engine and the Half Life 2: Episode 2 codebase and we’ve been developing for a few months now.

http://media.moddb.com/cache/images/mods/1/11/10826/thumb_300x150/Soldier_in-game.jpg (http://www.moddb.com/mods/10826/mentality/images/87547/soldier-in-game) http://media.moddb.com/cache/images/mods/1/11/10826/thumb_300x150/4_w.jpg (http://www.moddb.com/mods/10826/mentality/images/86698/level-design-wip) http://media.moddb.com/cache/images/mods/1/11/10826/thumb_300x150/pick-render_mentality.jpg (http://www.moddb.com/mods/10826/mentality/images/86920/pick-axe) http://media.moddb.com/cache/images/mods/1/11/10826/thumb_300x150/cgs515.1.jpg (http://www.moddb.com/mods/10826/mentality/images/89848/assault-weapons) http://media.moddb.com/cache/images/mods/1/11/10826/thumb_300x150/fingers.jpg (http://www.moddb.com/mods/10826/mentality/images/89925/fingers) http://media.moddb.com/cache/images/mods/1/11/10826/thumb_300x150/riflefull.jpg (http://www.moddb.com/mods/10826/mentality/images/90202/sniper-close-up)


This is a student project, the core team consists mostly of TAFESA game art students, Adelaide Uni programmers and a few others who are specializing. Myself, I'm a programmer. We've got some crazy talented people on board and it's been a blast to work on so far :D The plan is to have a playable demo at AVcon here in Adelaide in July, and hopefully have our final demo to showcase at Game Connect in Brisbane in November.

[flash width=425 height=340:f66f9609f0]http://www.moddb.com/cutoff/flash/player.swf?media=87226[/flash:f66f9609f0]
http://www.moddb.com/mods/10826/mentality/videos/87226/trigger-theory


Keep an eye on our modDB page, it's regularly updated with new screens and info:
http://www.moddb.com/mods/10826/mentality

Questions, comments, criticisms...it's all welcome :)

[xParad0Xx]

WOW! This mod looks truly epic! Can't wait to see the finished product :D

[Gus the Crocodile]

When you say "interesting gameplay based around his warped perceptions", what sorts of things do you actually mean? Hopefully more than some FOV tweaks and screen tilting.

I don't mean to sound cynical, but there are an awful lot of mod teams out there who start their development by doing the things that should really come last - fancy weapon models and screenshots of their particular implementation of assault rifle #45225 - instead of thinking about what differentiates their game from the hundred thousand other FPSs in the world.

But any mod is good practice for figuring that stuff out. Good luck with it, Thief.

[Danon]

Good to see an Aussie dude doing this, when it's finished I will definitely give it a download (assuming it's free).

It looks nice, so yeah, good luck man.

[THIEF!]

When you say "interesting gameplay based around his warped perceptions", what sorts of things do you actually mean? Hopefully more than some FOV tweaks and screen tilting.

I don't mean to sound cynical, but there are an awful lot of mod teams out there who start their development by doing the things that should really come last - fancy weapon models and screenshots of their particular implementation of assault rifle #45225 - instead of thinking about what differentiates their game from the hundred thousand other FPSs in the world.

But any mod is good practice for figuring that stuff out. Good luck with it, Thief.

Yeah, we met with some industry people for advice and they said pretty much the same thing, focus on the point of difference. The whole freak out thing will be central to the game, so it will definitely be more to it than just visual tricks. More depth to it than that. ;)

Definitely a learning experience, cheers for the advice.


Good to see an Aussie dude doing this, when it's finished I will definitely give it a download (assuming it's free).

It looks nice, so yeah, good luck man.

It'll be free but since we don't have the person hours to switch out all of Valve's assets for our own, it'll require ep 2 to run :)

[Kabal Scorpion]

Can you put in duel-wielding chainsaws? PLEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASE? Or a cannon that fires chainsaws?

[THIEF!]

Can you put in duel-wielding chainsaws? PLEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASE? Or a cannon that fires chainsaws?
You're not supposed to know about those yet :P

[Danon]

Needs a train gun.

Ahh sweet, I have hl2:ep2 so it's sweet..

*twiddles thumbs*

[Wormmm]

looks sweet!

ill be keeping tabs on this mod for sure :D

[BoonMcNougat]

I thought the pick was real at first glance!

Looks pretty cool, but I can't really say much right now.

[Eaglez Wingz]

*Doesnt Know What Mod is* Good Luck Anyway.

[debaser]

Good luck with it. Hopefully it won't become one of the 99.99% of mods that never get finished.

[THIEF!]

*Doesnt Know What Mod is* Good Luck Anyway.

Mod is just short for modification, when you take a game and tinker with it to some degree. It's pretty common practice since games like quake and doom, surprising you haven't run into the term before ;)

Thanks all for the support :)

[Eaglez Wingz]

Hey Thank You for clearing it up! :D

[tanka]

Good stuff Thief.. Modding is a really good way to get into the games industry. I'm looking for work in the games industry at the moment, and I'm building my portfolio up by working on a game online (It's not a mod, It's built from scratch, http://www.1944d-day.com/ for those interested) I'm only on trial at the moment, but hopefully that will change soon.

[THIEF!]

That game sounds interesting, and ambitious too! What's your role in the project?

[tanka]

A fairly general art role I think, at the moment I'm just modelling buildings. Real buildings too, and to scale. It's pretty fun.

[THIEF!]

Ah cool. Seems like a lot of work for programmers to get a whole FPS engine out from scratch for the game. How long has it been in development for, have you got stuff playable yet? It sounds amazing.

[tanka]

I honestly have no idea, and even if I did, I'm probably not allowed to tell. :P

I think it's been in development since about 2005, I'd heard of it before I applied for an art role. It's got a pretty big following.

[THIEF!]

Before I forget, and because I have to go overseas in a week, I'm gonna bump this thread to invite anyone coming to AVCon (http://www.avcon.org.au/site/) in Adelaide to remember to check our game out. I won't lie, it's pretty damn good :p

http://media.moddb.com/cache/images/mods/1/11/10826/thumb_300x150/sheety.jpg (http://www.moddb.com/mods/mentality/images/zombie-model-wip) http://media.moddb.com/cache/images/mods/1/11/10826/thumb_300x150/HANDS.jpg (http://www.moddb.com/mods/mentality/images/hands) http://media.moddb.com/cache/images/mods/1/11/10826/thumb_300x150/b-w.jpg (http://www.moddb.com/mods/mentality/images/state-of-mind) http://media.moddb.com/cache/images/mods/1/11/10826/thumb_300x150/molotov.1.jpg (http://www.moddb.com/mods/mentality/images/molotov-brew) http://media.moddb.com/cache/images/mods/1/11/10826/thumb_300x150/Mentality-axe-screen.jpg (http://www.moddb.com/mods/mentality/images/brewery) http://media.moddb.com/cache/images/mods/1/11/10826/thumb_300x150/Mentality_Molotov.jpg (http://www.moddb.com/mods/mentality/images/warehouse-in-flames)

[BoonMcNougat]

Hey Thief!, any new enws on this mod?

I must say it looks pretty damn good.

[THIEF!]

Sorry about the slow reply, was overseas for the last few weeks and I just got back. Bad news is that we probably won't be showcasing at game connect in November because of some administrative issues.

The mod itself is still coming along well though and the others have made a heap of progress while I was away. AVcon is this weekend and the feedback we're getting from people so far has been pretty positive. We're still aiming to be done by November.

[THIEF!]

Gameplay footage from the AVcon build :D

http://www.moddb.com/mods/mentality/videos/mentality-gameplay-video-1

[JemaKnight]

Wow, I love the idea with shooting to rope to trip the zombie things and such.

Work faster damn it, I want to download this now!

[Raiyzer]

Wow that actually does look really good.

I want to download this :P

[xParad0Xx]

I hope you guys get some kind of reward for this game. "Best mod of 2008" perhaps?

[THIEF!]

:eek: We got a line!! In Hyper!!!! Printed word ftw!

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/7306/hyperavcon08004do0.jpg

So bloody awesome!!! Thank you to those great folks at Krome :)

[xParad0Xx]

Congrats Thief! Hopefully all of your hard work pays off :)

EDIT: 2000th post. I want cake.

[THIEF!]

Cheers xParad0Xx and congrats to you on reaching 2k! :p

[Gookanheimer]

Heh, I saw this just the other day. Was wondering if you'd come across it.

[THIEF!]

OK folks, time for our first release! It's a pretty short demo and pretty messy and unpolished, but it's playable.

You'll need HL2 and Episodes 1 and 2 installed. In retrospect it probably would have been better if we had stuck to plain HL2 content but for now you'll need the episodic content as well. Go grab it here:


http://www.moddb.com/mods/mentality/downloads/mentality-alpha-demo-v01


Read the readme for install instructions. Have fun, feedback is appreciated!

Pretty much after avcon the project nearly stalled. I got me a job at Krome :D and the art guys have had a ton of tafe work and portfolio stuff, so it's been crawling along since then. The future of Mentality probably depends on how much more people want and what direction it should go in.

[Wormmm]

sweet! ill download it tonight and play it when i get up :D

[JemaKnight]

Stupid site won't send the stupid email to let me stupid register.

:(

I'll try again in the morning I suppose.

[THIEF!]

Hmm shouldn't be too much of a problem. Here's a couple of the mirrors as direct links anyway:

http://files.filefront.com/MentalityAlphaDemo1rar/;12058376;/fileinfo.html

http://www.fileshack.com/file_partner.x?f=moddb/2008%2F10%2F12%2FMentalityAlphaDemo.1.rar&t=Mentality+Alpha+Demo+v.0.1+for+Mentality+a+Half-Life+2+mod&g=Mentality&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.moddb.com%2Fmods%2Fmentality%2F downloads%2Fmentality-alpha-demo-v01&s=164167288