Half-Life 2 Episode 2 level design analysis by James Partridge

(Lovely British Accent) Hello! My name is Jim Partridge, i am a modder. I make maps and mods for HL2.

I will be talking you through my favorite level of HL2 Ep2. Its pretty much my favorite level of all the HL games, but i will be talking through it from my game play perspective

We're not going to really talk about ascetics too much we're not going to talk about map detailing or anything like that.

I'm interested purely in gameplay and analyzing HL2 from a gameplay perspective. Uncovering the reason why i think HL2 is so very very popular

And why people people still build mods for it, and why people still try and recreate the magic that valve created with HL2 and why HL2 is considered to be

pretty much the best FPS ever. (Laughs) Never noticed him before, look at that. See that's another reason.

Right. So. Here we are at my favorite map of all time. This is a key moment in this map. First of all i've already let the story bit play though

But basically alex pointed out that we have to jump the car across the bridge, from that side.

Additionally they kindof stand around this area as well and what it does is it allows the player to view the entire map layout.

So here we can see the whole layout. We dont know what it means or what its for, but we do get a teaser of what we are about to play through.

It shows us these key indicators or landmarks for us to be able to orient ourselves throughout the map. Its literally like looking like a map.

Until you go to these places, you dont know whats there, but you can see the map overall, so you always have a general idea of where you are throughout the game or the level. Which is why its very very clever.

I did say i wasnt going to talk about aesthetics, there is one point to make about this map. If you look at it you'll notice how some of the design is quite similar to TF2 design, with these kind of shacks and the chimneys

and the shapes and colors and angles. HL2, as much as many people might want to think it is, or try and design maps to be, HL2 is not realistic.

It is not real to the world, it is cartoony in fact, it is almost cartoony.

its kind of a blend of real and cartoon style. For example people say "oh that light down there dosnt have any cables coming out of it", well...

Tough. Who cares. You know? Its not about that, its about getting a vibe , a feel. And HL2 has a definite feel to it.

Ok, but as i said, this map isn't about aesthetics. We've already been told to head in here and we are on our way.

Moving through we reach an apparent dead end. we get the sound of a fast zombie, letting us know that there are grave things ahead.

This is a zombie area, and that is interesting because the zombies aren't really very dangerous by themselves

There's not really anything within the zombie arsenal that can really kill us too much.

The black hair crab zombies can be quite dangerous but aside from that most of the zombies you're going to be ok.

I like the zombie areas because of that, The player is never really in too much danger, but you can create a feel to the whole thing

Which creates a lot of emotion, which i like about certain level design.

This Area highlights one thing I'm going to talk about again and again here, which is that every room, every area you move into, is a game unto itself in HL2

It is a specific piece of game play that is designed to make you think about what you're doing.

Each area of game play i'm going to be able to describe in a sentence. This area is "Find the way out". Its very simple.

We use the grav gun to find the way out.

First of all they have hidden it, and secondly they have blocked it. You'll find that they have blocked a lot of these areas all the way through HL2.

It allows us to use the grav gun or we could have used the crowbar, to break those to move forward. But what has it really added?

I mean, we're heading this way, that's how the map is designed right? So whats the diff? Why bother putting these wooden blocks over this area?

Secondly we move into this area we see the same thing again, some wooden boards across the way out. Why bother?

There's several reasons. One: It slows the player down a little. You could quite easily race through these maps quickly if none of these obstructions were in the way.

Two: it creates something for the player to do. This is the really key point of all half life maps. They are purely designed around the player constantly having to do something, and this is no different

Every single area there will be something for me to do, whether its fight a bad guy, move some physics props, whatever, its all here for you to do.

drop down into this area. (Gasp of discovery) The way out was behind the thing i dropped down onto

One - Two

I looked around - the natural thing for a player to do is to look around for the way forward - we look around here, there is no way forward

So, we have to double back and find ourselves here.

Its: Bum, Bum Bum and then look here.

What it does is basically creates a situation where you have to stop and think. Even if its just for a moment to turn around and look at the way you came.

It's a chance for the player to pause and think about what they're doing, and every single area in HL2 is designed to make the player stop and think about what they're doing.

Or at least consider what they are doing, none of it is straight forward, nothing is easy.

Pull chair, let this bad boy out.

Ha, i'm not doing very well. We'll talk about black head crabs in a minute, soon as i dispatch this guy.

Black head crabs, are very very useful, because they cannot kill the player.

They are icky, we dont like them, they cause us to panic. We run around like crazy trying to avoid them but they cant kill you.

They will reduce you down to one health. If you combine black head crabs with normal head crabs then you've got yourself a dangerous situation.

They will both leap at you. This thing can get you down to one health, the other one can finish you off.

Obviously in this situation the actual head crab guy, the zombie, can actually swipe you and kill you if you let him get close, and they've reduced you down to one health.

But, using these guys to leap out at the player at various points is a great way to give the player a scare without actually possibly killing them.

For example: if they were down to one health anyways, which is perfectly possible at any point in any map, and you put in a normal head crab that leaps out at them,

It can cause them damage, this is a key point of gameplay design: The player should only be damaged when the have the opportunity to know to avoid the damage

Basically you gave them forewarning. This is dangerous, be very careful, if they were not careful, they will die.

If you damage the player without giving them fair warning, then you are cheating.

You are cheating the player out of the opportunity of winning the game, or at least of doing well.

The player must be able to learn how to avoid all damage at all times.

Is that unusual? Yes. Crates do not break when you drop on them in HL2.

In the editor, if you put a room with a crate on top of it, it will not break. they added a trigger ontop of it that made it break when i fell down ontop of it. For no other reason, than that it makes this area more interesting.

It serves no purpose, but it makes the area more interesting.

Ok, why put all these crates here when they serve no purpose? There isnt even any goodies about it. There's nothing to pick up, there's nothing to do.

Because it encourages the player to rummage around, have a look, and see if there is anything that's good.

The player gets very used to exploring and looking around and seeing if there is any goodies to be had.

By putting areas like this it keeps the player interested. It keeps the player thinking all the time.

Once again, exactly the same thing here, that could have simply been left like this (open), but they didn't, they put that in the way.

Also this gives you a bit of a weapon against these guys.

Kind of a forewarning, this is interesting in level design in the fact that you can see where you are going to head to, and you can see that you have got some barnacles coming up

Its giving the ability to the player to have some foresight, and they are then able to plan a little ahead or at least get themselves prepared.

Also what we are doing here is we are looping. We were up there, we've now dropped

and we can see that what we will do, is loop again, and we will come out of the bottom, underneath here.

Its a very clever use of space as well, essentially we are just going down in a circle.

So what has just happened there is a game play teaching tool.

We walked out, the zombie started to rise, but before it even got a chance to get off its knees, Alex nailed it with the sniper rifle.

They have just taught us that Alex is now on the sniper rife and is available to kill bad guys if we let her.

So if we see the beam we know that it will probably take care of some bad guys for us.

The interesting thing about this is that if i zoom in up there you will notice that it's completely black and you cannot see.

All that is a combine sniper entity set to be friendly to me through an AI relationship.

So we also get another chance to look at the level at this point, and actually just get our bearings. We are now in that stairwell we saw before.

Once again we know where we are in the world, we were up there, we are now down here. Its about orientation.

Now we look through again, from a lower point. once again we "touch" this area, and are given an idea of where we are

We hear the scream of the fast zombie again warning us that they are coming.

Speaking of minigames here's one. Get the supplies back without losing them.

The barnacle has them, if we kill the barnacle, watch what happens

Gone, lost it. If i had learned to wait, the barnacle would have dropped it and i could have grabbed it out of the air.

Because i attacked them i lost them. Its a mini game,

and it is rather fun.

The Whole point of these areas and things like this is completely irrelevant. There's absolutely no reason to have it here. There's not a battle, i don't have to move through this area

Its simply a minigame at the side of the level.

And this is what makes HL2 very very special. By combining different entities, like the barnacles and the supply crates and the long drop,

they have created a mini game. Its not a particularly complicated mini game, all you had to do was get the supplies back.

But it was fun, and it gave me (inaudible) and its what makes HL2 special.

Other games do not bother with this kind of thing.

I haven't played a game in quite a while that bothered to put in an extra side bit of game play for no reason at all.

Here's another one. Its an obstruction, but its also a mini game.

It gets played with a mechanic we learn a long long time ago back in HL2. Once again, boards in the way, no reason at all for that.

Here's a story into itself. The area's being shelled, the light beams tell us exactly the trajectory of the shell itself as it came through the wall.

Another mini game,

its as if the barnacles are stealing the floor away from you, to prevent you from moving forward.

So now you've got to find a way through. You could just jump it or we could take the side beams.

This is another key point of HL2. which is that they give the player options. And those options are everywhere

you can engage a situation in a variety of different ways because of the tools you have that they've given you to play with.

Here's a little minigame, this is great fun. This is purely to be sadistic.

There is absolutely no reason for it at all other than to be sadistic. Being sadistic is fun. Players like to be sadistic. Especially to Zombies.

Now, given that they've just given us this tool, its here, ready to be used. We've got one canister left over.

They've now presented us with another very clever bit of gameplay.

Here's a situation that i am fully in control of. The Zombine is not interested in me, he's not paying any attention to me.

He is busy doing something else. This gives me the opportunity to plan my attack. I can sit here and think:

Alright, how am i going to take care of this guy? In this case i am going to use a grenade.

Perfect. I planned my attack, i executed my attack, i feel very good about myself, about the the fact that i've done that.

There are nowhere near enough mods that allow me to do this. i dont see this in mods at all and i dont know why.

Its a very very simple effective thing to do.

So imagine you are walking across a walkway and there is a combine soldier walking underneath you,

who has not seen you, the player is completely in control of the situation and they can assault and plan as they wish to

I could have lured him up here, and lured him into the trap they had given me to use previously

I could have done it in a variety of ways, but the point is that i was given that choice.

In here is another bit of gameplay. If i enter here the lights will go out and these zombies will wake up.

This bit of game play is basically get the goodies without getting dead.

Once again it's given us even more zombies to continue using with the trap if we enjoyed using the trap.

But it's giving us the opportunity to do whatever we want.

Nice little signs, a little bit of character for the fast zombie here. Even gives us some grenades because they want to demonstrate this functionallity.

Haha! Wonderful

He Throws it back out at you again

hah, there you go.

Very Clever

Padlock on gate, absolutely no reason for it what so ever, just gives you something else to do. Slows the player down a little bit.

Thats taken care of them

Common Alex, make an effort

Quickly, even though this isn't about ascetics, i'm going to talk about map design briefly. People say to me that you have to have huge amounts of detail,

and you have to spend forever, and HL2 maps are too complicated. They're not. Look at this.

There is a single brush of a set size on each side,

boom boom,

Thats the same width, as this height, thats the same width as that, this is very blocky.

This area but its sold so completely to us because all of this area is made up of the same size of blocks.

These beams for example, one two three, thats three brushes, and yet it sells.

And you say: "Yep Ok, fine, no problem at all, i accept that as being a reality."

This section here is once again another bit of gameplay, they give us another trap.

This is a good point to talk about fences. Fences are fantastic things for gameplay purposes.

I can shoot through it, i can see through it, i can hear through it. But i cant move through it.

That's really important because it allows me to keep a very open feel to my world

But also guiding the player in a very definite way. I use fences a lot in my maps, and it is very useful and handy

Instead of this corridor feel, where you've been constantly constricted, you can open the world up a bit and make them feel that its not so claustrophobic.

Once again, i had options there. That zombie would have fired that at me,

which would have been caught by these guys, and i could have shot it and moved to the side. At that point i chose not to.

I chose to shoot it a bit early and get rid of most of them in one fell swoop.

I could have simply shot my way through these, then shot the zombies and left the barrels alone.

The player is always being given options.

Here's a thing. A pickup hidden behind a pipe. You cant really see it. If i was an eager player and just moved myway through.

Then i wouldnt be getting that. I took my time, i looked over here, I made the effort to look over here.

It really does take actual effort to look over there, cause its out of the way, and i got rewarded for making the effort of looking.

Exploration should always be rewarded and these could quite easily not have been here.

The could have been let this wall continue right across, to here, but instead they put the recess in, chucked three pipes in, and put a goodie behind it and a light.

And suddenly we've got this extra, very minor side of gameplay.

All of these tiny pieces add up to creating the feel of a much bigger world, and a much more fulfilling gameplay experience.

And thats exactly what a HL2 map is about. If you can recess things and put extra bits of gameplay -

Like for example here, you could have quite easily put a fence and then something behind it for the player to pickup and lift out, thats what gives it the HL2 feel.

Once again, we've got another bonus here, this is the wrong way, its not the way to go, but if we go down and do a bit of exploring, we find some more goodies.

Here's a sawblade, have a sawblade. They are delivering the sawblade in an interesting way however, they could have just put the sawblade on the floor, like that.

But they didnt, they chose to put it in the wall. Its not a hugely complex way of setting up a new map -

That would have taken you probably about two seconds, well, a minute or two to sort out, but it certainly adds too the overall gameplay.

So now our gameplay has changed once more, we have moved onto a new style of play,

and this is the whole point about HL2, its continuously changing.

Alex is about to tell us to move these things out of the way so she can get a shot. And she can then take care of the bad guys.

so rather than the gameplay being one of a sort of aggressive kill everything - which is fine -

But it can get quite monotonous and dull, they've also found a new way for us to engage with the bad guys. Essentially, let Alex do it.

Let the women take care of it, because women are smart and beautiful and know more than we do.

I'm 35, you'll learn this in time, about women that is.

Ok, so.

We have a choice. When do we want to drop into this area?

A knowing HalfLife player knows that once we drop in here somethings going to happen.

So they completely leave it up to us. There we go. The minute we drop in the action begins.

This next section of the gameplay changes once again.This guy starts hacking away at this thing, this thing that i love, there we go.

And we are dropped into the pit, so to speak. The gameplay is now: Move the zombies to a position where Alex can kill them.

But we're given some of our own toys too.

Everyone likes the sawblades and zombies, you cant go wrong.

So the gameplay rule has changed once again. The other thing to note is that in this area, the timing of when things happen is completely on valves stopwatch.

We have no control over when these panels are going to drop, when these new bad guys are going to get introduced to the area.

As i say, each of these different doorways drops at a different time, and the bad guys are introduced to the area in a very specific manner.

<Giggle>

There is also an emotional thing going on here, basically that feel of constantly being approached, being closed in.

Its a very classic zombie motif of the gathering crowd.

as they sort of swamp you and take you over, smother you, so to speak.

And then we are moving into a puzzle area. Puzzle areas are great because they give the chance to have a breather.

That was quite a stressful situation, and now for the most part, this is going to be reasonably straightforward.

You will notice that the nature of the bad guys changes immediately. Here we have barnacles, which are completely passive.

And we have a couple of crawling zombies - not exactly threatening stuff.

The reason for that is because its a puzzle area, and puzzle areas, should not be stressful.

The player needs time to think, the player needs time to consider the puzzle and to work out what it is they've got to do.

A bad puzzle area is and area that is filled with bad guys,

that are stressful.

Badguys that will chase you around and make you panic. Your puzzle area should never have these kind of bad guys in it.

You want very very small and non threatening bad guys. Our at least something that isnt a danger to life and limb.

Lets talk about puzzles, i love designing puzzles.

There is a very straightforward process to designing puzzles, and its amazing to me how many people get this wrong.

You should show the player the objective -this is where you aiming to get to-

Then you let them work out the bit in the middle. Its that simple.

And that bit in the middle, has to be pretty darn obvious, i hate to say it.

Unfortunately players don't really think too clearly about what they need to do. Or at least puzzles shouldn't be that complex.

Here its very straightforward. There's where i'm heading to, and there is a forklift truck in between

the forklift is a great big yellow thing so its easy to spot, and secondly i think everyone is fa-miler with what a forklift truck does.

So we head down, hit the bright red handle, and up it goes.

Pretty darn straight forward.

Not stressful, but rewarding none the less. The player feels like they've cracked an interesting puzzle here.

Its slowed the pace of play down a little as well, after all that hectic running around.

As far as i'm concerned, you should think about your gameplay as a helix, a sort of wavelength, as its moving up and down in tempo.

At the moment, we're at the low ebb of that tempo. That tempo will get faster as we move through this area.

So once again a moment to pause, and they are bringing us back out into this area, and we can look up and get our bearings

we can see where we are in the situation and where we are in the map that they showed us earlier.

We recognize the two pipes so we know we're over there.

This is an important bit too, i'm sure you've heard about this before, but this is essentially a function of push gameplay.

This is a point of no return, i cannot now get back to the areas where i was before, and thats on purpose.

Valve want me to keep moving through the area, they do not want me to constantly have to run back to the beginning.

You'll notice that you get broken stair cases and stuff like that which do the same thing.

This is another piece of gameplay: don't step in the goo.

You dont really need the pallets, its kind of a proposal to you.

"Here's some pallets, you might want to use them to stop yourself getting hurt by the goo.

But, as we've seen before, its not absolutely necessary.

This doesn't look good.

We didnt have to use the pallets at all, they were put there as a proposal to the player.

There are quite a lot of elements like this in HL2. And this is really important, once again, you are not forcing the player to do anything.

You are just saying "Hey, why not do this?"

This next area i'm in right now is quite interesting, because it's one of the only areas where you have an infinite bit of gameplay.

We see the beer bottles, and there is a bit of story telling here: Chair, Beer, Gun, Grenades.

Someone has sat here having a wonderful time for quite a while taking care of zombies.

And these guys will continue to respawn. I've added a few areas in some of my maps before.

and i think people like them.

Pretty straightforward, ive done this quite a lot, maybe too much in some of my own maps, which is hide the goodies behind the fence.

Making them lift them over, once again its just something else to do. They could have made this section very clearly just a walk through, but instead you crouch.

Why do you crouch? Because it gives you something else to do. It is not a straightforward way forward.

This constant engaging the player in something else to do is the fundamental basis of Halflife modding.

Once again, Point of No Return. Cant go back.

Why cant we go back? Otherwise we would be able to get endless amounts of grenades.

This is interesting because the area we are coming up to in the river, these spools will be used more and more.

This stepping stone, spool, hints at that kind of gameplay. It says, "dont forget, you can use these to stop yourself from going in the water".

So when you played HL2, you will remember this from the radioactive tunnel, where we use the spools as stepping stones.

Once again they are just reminding us of that gameplay, or teaching new people if they haven't played that before.

This i really like, this is once again, using a couple of simple elements to create a new bit of gameplay.

Its completely inconsiquential to the rest of the map, but here we have a box, and we know full well that if we break this here

any small items will go through that gap and we'll lose them in the gunge. So the player has to stop and think once again. Constantly forcing the player to be thinking, to reconsider what they are doing.

There we go, and i could if i needed it, i could have picked that up there and i wouldn't have lost anything.

But i had to stop and think about it.

Here we are at the area where we have to use the spool.

We don't "have" to, once again i could quite easily jump from here to there, and not step in the goo

I like this area because, you can use these spools in several different ways.

They're quite good as a weapon with the grav gun as well, to kill all the zombies that come up.

With the island they are quite clever, because it adds a lot more pressure to the player,

There's less places to go.

Also, you've got the islands function. They function as a way to put you in close quarters with the zombine.

Making you panic all the more. Once again, its about emotion, its about getting that panic-y emotion going on.

As we move up we can hear Alex congratulating us for getting over.

That is the point of Alex, by the way, Alex is there to congratulate you and give you a hint along the way.

But mainly to congratulate you actually.

This area here, this lovely hut, which i quite like the detailing on,

and the hut next door, are completely and totally pointless. Other than to provide the player with pickups and just to refresh them, there is no reason to have them there.

So why bother? Because once again it gives the player something else to do.

And it fleshes out the world a bit more and it makes the map a bit full.

They probably would have thought: "alright, we get to the far bank, and we just head up here"

Well, that's kind of boring, we'll just add this bit. I think that's a good lesson to learn,

Every single time you have an area, which seems incredibly straightforward, add one other element to it that is completely unnecessary.

That the player can just do a little bit more exploring, and pickup a bonus of some kind.

Whether its a re-sess or, a dead end little crawly space that they can go into to pickup a bonus or whatever.

And then we get to the final main puzzle of the area, I may cut it here, as i think we've all played this bit and we know what happens:

You move the cars to this end, and its a see-saw bridge, and you jump the car across and you complete the map.

The entire map is one big puzzle, thats the point. The entire map is a puzzle from start to finish.

You are constantly reminded of where you are in that puzzle, and how you're progressing, you are reminded of your progress every turn.

Its incredibly efficient and very very well done, it provides a hell of a lot of incredible HL2 style gameplay.

In what is really actually quite a small space, Look at what we've done:

We've just snaked our way all the way through this area, we've come all the way around various different ways.

They've really just reamed as much gameplay out of this area as possible. This is efficient level design at its best in my opinion.

So there you go, I'm not going to jump the bridge, because I've got other stuff to do.

I've got levels to go and build, but i hope that was useful, i hope that was helpful.

I hope you enjoyed listening to me, i know i go on a bit.

if you've got any questions please add them to the bottom of the video.

Or if you want to get in touch, i'll put my details there and you can ask me any questions as you go.

I hope this was useful and take care.