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Flesh is a newly released third person horror mod for Half-life 2. It takes a bit of a different approach to other mods as there is no actual combat with the horrors throughout the mod, instead you must avoid confrontation in a variety of ways. The mod promises a vast array of interesting puzzles with rewards for players who enjoy exploration. Flesh creates a great atmosphere of fear using sound and misdirection. Read our interview below with Leon Kilean, lead developer for Flesh.[br]
Interview with Leon from Flesh<hr size="3" noshade color="#ED761C"></strong>[br]
Hectic Glenn: What can players expect from Flesh which they won't get from any other game or mod?[br]Leon: Unique features, hmm.. In this mod -almost through the whole thing- you just cant fight back. You´re playing an unarmed, uninteresting, casual person, and he has a flash light in his hand, and that's it. If you really try to poke him towards the monsters, he´ll just die. So, true insecurity. It IS a horror game after all. Oh and speaking of that, this is a horror game with colours! I'm really proud of the saturated look, strong colours, all that. Vibrant. It goes against the public belief that everything desaturated and gritty is instantly scary.[br]
Glenn: We don't see many third person view mods, why did you choose to use it and why did you decide against first person?[br]Leon: A Mental disorder I have..no, actually, Flesh´s very first alpha/proof of concept WAS in first person, and I would have kept that if it wasn't for one thing - guns. Its pretty much set in our backbone or something, that if you have an first person game, you must interact with your environments through violence. Penumbra is an good example, its a great horror game - in first person - where you solve puzzles and avoid fighting. Alot of players complained the fighting was too hard, but in fact you weren't even meant to engage in combat. Sweet game by the way, even the basic spiders are scary as hell, because they can kill you so easily.[br]Also, I think the change of perspective takes you even further away from the HL2 mindset. It really helps to build the feel of the mod, and mood is everything here.[br]
[br]
Glenn: The lack of fighting in the game may surprise some people, is there enough emphasis on exploration or puzzle solving to keep people going?[br]
Leon: The core gameplay is as simple as it gets, but I´ve added plenty of surprises and audiovisual rewards along the way to keep players interested. Cool cut scenes or never-ending flood of new pretty areas, Jesse´s songs, story elements, things like that. I hope the storyline gets your interest, since the ending is awesome. You have a good story if you have an good ending, pretty much. Regarding the exploring, Flesh has alot of "extra" details and surprises in it - just lying around - that will reward careful exploring.[br]
Glenn: Flesh has a major focus around horror, what kind of things have you learnt about this genre making Flesh?[br]
Leon: Less is more. Sounds are very important. Turning right is scarier than turning to left, or maybe it was the other way around..? I hope not. Also, pacing is really important, like you need to have some quiet moments, the more the better. The less "jumpscares" and intentional scares, the scarier it really is. Then your mind starts creating all the horror for you. One thing I´ve hardly ever found scary is blood, or mutilated corpses just lying around, its just a show-off, so I conciously tried to avoid that in Flesh.[br]
Glenn: Why did you set out to make Flesh, was it a school based mod or something else?
[br]
Leon: Personal project, the only thing I gained from this is a sore back and recognition. Back in January (2009) I wanted to learn a few new entities in Hammer (level editor) and it sort of got out of control. After the basics what kept me going was the thought of doing a proper, story-driven single player horror game for HL2. You know, the kind of a mod that dies out after a month of development. I wonder, if this IS the first one that made it on HL2, or are there others? At least I haven't found any, and I mean total conversion-style horror mod.[br]Its easy to finish a mod if you control everything yourself, so there´s no outside bottlenecks in development and such. Then things go smoothly. You can jump from animating to mapping, and, OK coding I cant do, but I´d love to.. But yeah, developing rolls, and sooner or later, you´ll release. For me it took from January to October.[br]
[br]
Glenn: From the trailers you released the atmosphere looks terrifying, how much focus have you put into sound?
[br]Leon: Source has a horrible sound system, or at least I couldn't manage around it, since I'm no coder nor audio engineer of any sort. There is some cool stuff in there, like the soundscapes and some scripts, but that is about it. The default .wav format is such an resource/quality hog. Its a shame I had to put all the music into 8-bit files, so some golden ears might hear noise in there, but that is a resource limit I had and couldn't get around it. If only Source supported .flac files or something like that. I might be just stupid, but I'm pretty confident that the sound system doesn't stretch that far.[br]But yeah, a lot of focus went into the sounds. New creature sounds, new soundscapes, good quality voice acting (I was blessed with good voice actors), music, in fact, the mod features dynamic music! With that I mean, it changes according to where you are and if you´re in danger or not. I owe alot of that to Jesse (Jesse Harlin, composer on Flesh) who had these crazy ideas and made me do them for real.[br]
Glenn: When people read this, Flesh will be released! How does it feel to finish a project like this?[br]
Leon: Scary as hell, but also kinda Rocky Balboaish, like a survivor, or such. "I made my own horror game, yay!" Its scary to release a single player mod, because you play it once, and then its done. Hardly anyone returns to them if I create a patch or something. But yeah, I hope enough people find this mod, they don't have any bugs or errors and they enjoy it. Yea, what a humble wish.. Also, I feel very tired. Very numb. I think I´ll try to rest a little before I continue on anything.
Well that scares me as well, that I'd have to start something new at some point. Maybe its easier this time around, at least I hope so, I know I've learned quite a lot from making Flesh. Oh and maybe I'll have more people around me now.[br]One odd thing I realised in the public version is, Flesh is no longer "my thing". It isn't my personal little hobby any more. My big boy is off to the world now..[br]
[br]
Glenn: What can we expect from Flesh in the future?[br]Leon: There is a future for Flesh, yes. First of all, I'll release a Patch / Second release that adds subtitles, possibly fixes for found bugs, and maybe some extra details or awesomeness, who knows. Then, the soundtrack is another thing that we'd like to release, as a package of mp3s. Few remixes in there, things like that. Oughta be cool. Since, you know, the music rocks! Also, there was a lot of behind-the-scenes magic going on in Flesh so maybe I'll write something out of that at some point.[br]
Glenn: Lastly, important question. If Gordon Freeman could say one word, what would it be?[br]
Leon: 'Yes' - Why? Because Gordon wants to please everyone. The guy just can't say no.[br]Thanks to Leon for his time, more info and download the mod on the Flesh mod website.
Interview with Leon from Flesh<hr size="3" noshade color="#ED761C"></strong>[br]
Hectic Glenn: What can players expect from Flesh which they won't get from any other game or mod?[br]Leon: Unique features, hmm.. In this mod -almost through the whole thing- you just cant fight back. You´re playing an unarmed, uninteresting, casual person, and he has a flash light in his hand, and that's it. If you really try to poke him towards the monsters, he´ll just die. So, true insecurity. It IS a horror game after all. Oh and speaking of that, this is a horror game with colours! I'm really proud of the saturated look, strong colours, all that. Vibrant. It goes against the public belief that everything desaturated and gritty is instantly scary.[br]
Glenn: We don't see many third person view mods, why did you choose to use it and why did you decide against first person?[br]Leon: A Mental disorder I have..no, actually, Flesh´s very first alpha/proof of concept WAS in first person, and I would have kept that if it wasn't for one thing - guns. Its pretty much set in our backbone or something, that if you have an first person game, you must interact with your environments through violence. Penumbra is an good example, its a great horror game - in first person - where you solve puzzles and avoid fighting. Alot of players complained the fighting was too hard, but in fact you weren't even meant to engage in combat. Sweet game by the way, even the basic spiders are scary as hell, because they can kill you so easily.[br]Also, I think the change of perspective takes you even further away from the HL2 mindset. It really helps to build the feel of the mod, and mood is everything here.[br]
Glenn: The lack of fighting in the game may surprise some people, is there enough emphasis on exploration or puzzle solving to keep people going?[br]
Leon: The core gameplay is as simple as it gets, but I´ve added plenty of surprises and audiovisual rewards along the way to keep players interested. Cool cut scenes or never-ending flood of new pretty areas, Jesse´s songs, story elements, things like that. I hope the storyline gets your interest, since the ending is awesome. You have a good story if you have an good ending, pretty much. Regarding the exploring, Flesh has alot of "extra" details and surprises in it - just lying around - that will reward careful exploring.[br]
Glenn: Flesh has a major focus around horror, what kind of things have you learnt about this genre making Flesh?[br]
Leon: Less is more. Sounds are very important. Turning right is scarier than turning to left, or maybe it was the other way around..? I hope not. Also, pacing is really important, like you need to have some quiet moments, the more the better. The less "jumpscares" and intentional scares, the scarier it really is. Then your mind starts creating all the horror for you. One thing I´ve hardly ever found scary is blood, or mutilated corpses just lying around, its just a show-off, so I conciously tried to avoid that in Flesh.[br]
Glenn: Why did you set out to make Flesh, was it a school based mod or something else?
[br]
Leon: Personal project, the only thing I gained from this is a sore back and recognition. Back in January (2009) I wanted to learn a few new entities in Hammer (level editor) and it sort of got out of control. After the basics what kept me going was the thought of doing a proper, story-driven single player horror game for HL2. You know, the kind of a mod that dies out after a month of development. I wonder, if this IS the first one that made it on HL2, or are there others? At least I haven't found any, and I mean total conversion-style horror mod.[br]Its easy to finish a mod if you control everything yourself, so there´s no outside bottlenecks in development and such. Then things go smoothly. You can jump from animating to mapping, and, OK coding I cant do, but I´d love to.. But yeah, developing rolls, and sooner or later, you´ll release. For me it took from January to October.[br]
Glenn: From the trailers you released the atmosphere looks terrifying, how much focus have you put into sound?
[br]Leon: Source has a horrible sound system, or at least I couldn't manage around it, since I'm no coder nor audio engineer of any sort. There is some cool stuff in there, like the soundscapes and some scripts, but that is about it. The default .wav format is such an resource/quality hog. Its a shame I had to put all the music into 8-bit files, so some golden ears might hear noise in there, but that is a resource limit I had and couldn't get around it. If only Source supported .flac files or something like that. I might be just stupid, but I'm pretty confident that the sound system doesn't stretch that far.[br]But yeah, a lot of focus went into the sounds. New creature sounds, new soundscapes, good quality voice acting (I was blessed with good voice actors), music, in fact, the mod features dynamic music! With that I mean, it changes according to where you are and if you´re in danger or not. I owe alot of that to Jesse (Jesse Harlin, composer on Flesh) who had these crazy ideas and made me do them for real.[br]
Glenn: When people read this, Flesh will be released! How does it feel to finish a project like this?[br]
Leon: Scary as hell, but also kinda Rocky Balboaish, like a survivor, or such. "I made my own horror game, yay!" Its scary to release a single player mod, because you play it once, and then its done. Hardly anyone returns to them if I create a patch or something. But yeah, I hope enough people find this mod, they don't have any bugs or errors and they enjoy it. Yea, what a humble wish.. Also, I feel very tired. Very numb. I think I´ll try to rest a little before I continue on anything.
Well that scares me as well, that I'd have to start something new at some point. Maybe its easier this time around, at least I hope so, I know I've learned quite a lot from making Flesh. Oh and maybe I'll have more people around me now.[br]One odd thing I realised in the public version is, Flesh is no longer "my thing". It isn't my personal little hobby any more. My big boy is off to the world now..[br]
Glenn: What can we expect from Flesh in the future?[br]Leon: There is a future for Flesh, yes. First of all, I'll release a Patch / Second release that adds subtitles, possibly fixes for found bugs, and maybe some extra details or awesomeness, who knows. Then, the soundtrack is another thing that we'd like to release, as a package of mp3s. Few remixes in there, things like that. Oughta be cool. Since, you know, the music rocks! Also, there was a lot of behind-the-scenes magic going on in Flesh so maybe I'll write something out of that at some point.[br]
Glenn: Lastly, important question. If Gordon Freeman could say one word, what would it be?[br]
Leon: 'Yes' - Why? Because Gordon wants to please everyone. The guy just can't say no.[br]Thanks to Leon for his time, more info and download the mod on the Flesh mod website.
