I Hate Mountains

Believe me, we’d really like to add some news on this front page, but I got an unfortunate accident with my Source SDK. Today, without any warning, it just stopped working. When opening up the Source SDK Launcher, there’s nothing I can do anymore. It opens correctly, but I can’t click anymore on the tools. If I try to double-click on Hammer Editor, Model Viewer or Face Poser, the SDK Launcher just stops itself without any error message and without launching the corresponding application.

This is not the first time the Source SDK stops working… but this is the first time it does not display any error message. I tried the usual stuff: Refresh SDK Content, Reset Game Configurations, Defragment Cache Files, Verify Integrity of Tool Cache, Restart Steam, Reboot Windows, Delete the ClientRegistry.blob, uninstall and reinstall the Source SDK GCFs, delete everything SDK-related in Steam and reinstall everything from scratch… I even deleted the whole Valve preferences from the registry. So far no change.

I used the SDK for a few hours and it stopped working when I tried to relaunch Hammer using a different game configuration. The only thing I did before it stopped working is install the Dawn of War II Demo (but I doubt this was related, I uninstalled it just to be sure). There was also a Steam update released at the same time… I really don’t know what to do, if some of you already faced the same problem someday and know what to do, please post in the comments or send an email to nicolas@ihatemountains.com, I really need it to finish the fifth map of the campaign…

Edit April 18:
I just entirely uninstalled Steam and reinstalled it only with Source SDK to witness that it doesn’t change anything. I’m now completely stuck.

Edit April 19:
Mokay, I uninstalled Steam again, trashed ALL the GCFs (sigh), deleted the whole Valve registry key, cleaned the computer with TuneUp, and installed everything back from scratch (40 GB of GCFs to download, sigh) and things seems to be working again. Thanks to the people who tried to help there and via e-mail, much appreciated.

Yesterday, we learnt that some people managed to get their hands on some private-exclusive-early access to the Left 4 Dead SDK. Which means a few things :

1. First, that there is a SDK. That’s not as bad as some people thought after all. Even if it’s five months late, it’s still better than never.
2. Second, that Valve is testing it. Therefore, we can assume that they got it right this time. Hopefully, when the “new” SDK comes out, it shouldn’t screw everything during several weeks this time. But seriously, we’re not really this confident, and chose to prevent the automatic SDK update in Steam anyway.
3. Third, we know that someone at Valve’s headquarters is reading this blog, Google Analytics is tracking you! What are you waiting for to offer us an early access to this SDK? Come on! Mail us at team@ihatemountains.com, dont be shy!

Anyway, since I developed a little tool to handle the custom content, sort it between Left 4 Dead content and external stuff and embed it automatically in the map files, it’s not much of a problem anymore. BUT STILL, we’d really like to see the new functionalities, if any.

During the last week, we talked about the forest level and how we managed to get around some of the limitations of the engine. This week, we’ll focus a bit more on the second level, the manor. When the survivors get out of the forest, they must reach the highest point of a dusty manor and try to launch a distress call from the radio.

Since we first talked about the campaign, some people asked the following question a few times : Will you be paying homage to any movies or games? Is the manor the same as the mansion from Resident Evil? This is one of the questions David from GamesModding.com asked us a few days ago, and the answer is no, not really.

We’re paying homage to multiple things and we’re borrowing from multiple sources for inspiration, but we’re not trying to reproduce anything existing. […] I personally think it’s uninteresting, people should try to innovate and create something new and fresh instead of always copying and reproducing everything from game to game. The original work/game will always be the best. Our primary sources of inspiration are the Canadian mountains and a bit of Dawn of the Dead for some details. […]

When we first imagined the manor, the campaign wasn’t even born. It was still an early prototype of what could become a single player horror adventure. We had a lot of troubles to find how we should handle this manor, how many rooms it should have and what should be it’s global age and state. At first, we decided to go for an exact copy of the Disneyland Resort Paris Haunted Manor, it was so cliché that we couldn’t miss the point. But eventually, we never found how to develop this idea. Wooden manor were usually not large enough to contain all the space we needed. Which means a lot more than what you can found in the last level’s mansion of Blood Harvest.

We browsed hundreds of plans from dozens of real estate websites until we found something that could suit our needs perfectly. The manor is called Fontainebleau, just like the French castle, but it has nothing else in common. We studied the plans, built a prototype in Hammer and spent many hours trying to figure out a path between the numerous rooms. I (Nicolas) built the prototype, expanded it and moved away from the original plan until the gameplay path got pretty solid. Then, Marc took over the prototype and decorated the whole manor with the help of the team (it’s not so easy to find a unique idea for more than fifty rooms). The process mostly destroyed the original manor and transformed it into a dusty emmental.

The final ambience progressively moved from “haunted manor” to “recently abandonned manor” and the main idea behind it became “provide the players with an extremely closed environment”, just like the hospital or the apartments in No Mercy, but without any defined path and with a darker setting (watch out for your teammates). It’s up to the players to make their way to the highest room of the manor and there’s a lot of solutions to reach it. Let’s just hope the final Left 4 Dead SDK will provide an easy way to compute multi-paths between indoor and outdoor environments.

Stay tuned for more developer banter until the release.
… and be sure to read the little interview on GamesModding.com.