Sailing along

It's been awhile since I've talked about the big HL2 mod I am currently working on, Neptune. For the most part, it's been coming along, slowly, but surely. When the team came together, and I joined the project back in about August of 2008, we were all extremely excited about the project, very ambitious and eager to get it done. However, we became over ambitious trying to create something that we neither had the resources or time to achieve.

My primary role on Neptune is lead writer. The main guy behind Neptune, England native Lewis Denby, thought up of the initial concept and story of Neptune. He recruited me to turn his idea into a workable, strong story. Having more of a screenwriting background at that time, I approached the project like I would a film. I wrote a 6 page treatment which the team and I went over and picked apart. It was then that I would learn the biggest difference between writing for film and for video games.

Writing for video games is unlike writing for film for many many reasons. However, the main obstacle in writing for games is the technological barrier. I originally wrote this epic magnificent intro were the player character is aboard a small fishing boat in the middle of the Atlantic before a monstrous hurricane comes and batters the boat which is then sucked down into the ocean by a cyclone. The team quickly came to me and said very frank "that's not something that we have the resources or time to do". A lot of my treatment had to "dumbed down" if this mod were to ever see the light of day. A lot of things had to completely rewritten and/or pulled from the treatment. This made me a much more aware writer for video games as I now have the ultimate question of "can this engine perform this?" stays in the back of my mind whenever I write.

So lesson learned, I began to write the script. The script took a very long time, much more then it should have. During the winter months, progress slowed down to a crawl. The entire team was just swamped with real life obligations and it became exceedingly difficult to devote more time then we would want to on Neptune. Morale was down, so low to the point were many of us believed the mod was dead. I knew that the main problem was the script. Everyone was waiting on it so that they would have something to work on, levels to build, art to create, music and sound and compose. The game design document that Lewis initially wrote was good, but incomplete in a lot of ways and didn't provide a lot of information regarding on what to create for the game; I am currently rewriting a full game design doc which should further steer production in the right direction and communicate a clear vision for the team.

It wasn't till May of 2009 that the script was finally done. I posted it on our mod forum for the team to read and received great praise, especially for the ending (I can't spoil everything ;) ). Morale was risen high and production jump started into high gear. We had a meeting and basically said to each other "look, we are a small team, talented, but small. We are getting lost in the big picture and need to focus on creating a scary experience and horrifying atmosphere.". We completely redesigned the concept of Neptune into something manageable. The number of characters were cut in half, enemies were to be re-designed so that they can be recycled through out, number of weapons decreased, intro completely rewritten, etc. As Ron Gilbert once said "don't be afraid to take away from your game". We haven't made the Neptune less of a game, in fact I believe it's a stronger game now then before.

With a lot of cuts being made, I feel it's actually been for the best. The new intro is absolutely fabulous and down right scary. It automatically hooks the player into the mystery of the Neptune, setting the mood and tone perfectly, all at the same time within the means of the level designers. Once again the team has high hopes for Neptune and we are on a fast track towards release. As my own personal level designing skills increase everyday, I am sure that I will be able to help out with level designing duties which will only further speed up the process.

Neptune is still a very ambitious project. Not many singleplayer mods actually get finished, nor do they feature such a new and interesting IP. Neptune has much potential to create giant waves in the mod community. We already have a large following and I can't wait for fans, and non-fans alike, to get their grubby hands on this mod. I'm sure it will nothing short of an amazing, terrifying experience.