Escape (2000)

I released Escape on the 24th December 2000. I was 14 years old and had been mapping for a year. It made the Sven Co-op front page, but to be honest I think back then, nearly every map did. Some servers uploaded it, and it got into some map cycles, however it soon dropped out sadly - in my opinion it's a fun map to play, but there are some crucial gameplay errors which let it down.


Firstly, the positives. As I said before, the map is fun. You travel around a facility battling grunts and aliens, and there are some interesting set pieces, such as ambushes, outside shooting battles among rocks, breaking floors and shark tanks. These aren't amazing innovation, but it does make for an engaging and sometimes funny co-operative experience.


The drawbacks to the map however are some of the navigation errors. In order to go through doors you have to 'use' them, which people don't always figure out, get frustrated, and leave. Also, after the beginning grunt battle, you have to run to the other side and touch the fence to open the door to the next area. How do you figure this out? You can't, you just stumble onto it. I did this as I didn't know about game_counters, and wanted to make sure people couldn't cheat to get ahead. Instead I just made it so legitimate gamers got pissed and left.


The looks of the map are also not that great, and I took that to heart quite a lot after it was released. The architecture is very flat, and there's nothing much interesting to look at, apart from the odd prefab. I spent the years after that improving my detailing and architecture in the maps.

Download Escape

To play you need a copy of Half-Life 1  (available on Steam, under the Half-Life 1 Anthology) and Sven Co-op, which you can download here. Then unzip the file above to the Halflife directory. Load up Sven Co-op, and play the map.