
Half-Life 1 engine based games - ekianjo
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/halflife?utm_source=explore-newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=daily&utm_campaign=explore-email
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exogen
Assuming Half-Life the game was using this without tweaking the engine
parameters much, I have to say this is the only engine that really "felt" 100%
right to me. In Quake 1-3 I felt heavy/bulky, like my body didn't collide
where I expected it to, Tribes 1 and 2 were very floaty, etc. HL1 was so
natural.

~~~
archagon
Yes, definitely! I think the feel of the HL1 engine is a large part of what
made games like CS, DoD, TFC, Firearms, Action Half-Life, The Specialists,
etc. so fun and popular. Even HL1 DM compared favorably to UT and Quake at
times. Stock sound effects from HL1 still sometimes appear in Source games,
and whenever I hear one, I'm instantly taken back to dodging rockets, gauss
shots, and bullets while leaping towards the doomsday button in crossfire. I
still miss that thriving multiplayer scene.

~~~
visakanv
Aw, man. That was the best way for a group of friends to bond quickly. I had
this funny moment with a guy where both of us ran out of ammunition at the
same time while shooting at each other, then we were both killed by a rocket
from another guy... memories for life

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erikj
There is an open-source reimplementation of the Half-Life 1 engine:
[http://www.moddb.com/engines/xash3d-engine](http://www.moddb.com/engines/xash3d-engine)

~~~
ekianjo
Has anyone here tried it to see how it runs ? Can you play HL1 from beginning
to end with it ?

~~~
erikj
Yes, you can. It's even compatible with most mods.

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angersock
Don't get too excited...this isn't GoldSrc (the actual engine), but instead
the SDK for mod-making.

~~~
stephen_g
Also, I'm pretty sure that this has been available for more than ten years,
just not on GitHub.

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angersock
It has been--that's where I started learning C++.

:)

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voltagex_
Look at the number of issues!
[https://github.com/ValveSoftware/halflife/issues](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/halflife/issues)

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iso8859-1
If you want to do Half-Life modding, you can come a long way just scripting
using AMX Mod X[0]. AMX Mod X has 260K LOC[2]. For comparison, the SDK has
273K LOC, but that's mostly headers. Plugins are written in Pawn (formerly
known as Small) which is compiled and then interpreted. AMX Mod X is GPL.

For example, there's the SuperHeroes mod, which is also open-source[1].

Here are two videos demonstrating how radically gameplay was adjusted in
SuperHeroes:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGmCKQ57z-Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGmCKQ57z-Y)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vY7bBhXA0k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vY7bBhXA0k)

[0]:
[https://github.com/alliedmodders/amxmodx](https://github.com/alliedmodders/amxmodx)

[1]:
[https://svn.alliedmods.net/viewvc.cgi/amxmodx_plugin/trunk/p...](https://svn.alliedmods.net/viewvc.cgi/amxmodx_plugin/trunk/plugins/?root=superhero)

[2]: [https://www.ohloh.net/p/amxmodx](https://www.ohloh.net/p/amxmodx)

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brokenparser
s/engine based games/SDK/

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AdmiralAsshat
Think that guy who did the Doom/Quake/Duke Nukem source code reviews can do
one on Half-Life now?

~~~
comrh
This was new to me.
[http://fabiensanglard.net/duke3d/index.php](http://fabiensanglard.net/duke3d/index.php)
What a great read combining code readability and game design.

~~~
Gracana
Yeah, his site is awesome. He has some other reviews and interesting articles,
too. I think "Learning Legendary Hardware" was posted on HN recently.

[http://fabiensanglard.net/learning_legendary_hardware/index....](http://fabiensanglard.net/learning_legendary_hardware/index.php)

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DigitalSea
It is always fantastic to see companies opening up older source code for the
public to view. Seeing some of the interesting decisions the developers made
to create such an iconic game is very interesting. I always massively geek out
on these things.

~~~
vomitcuddle
How is releasing source code under a commercial license considered "opening it
up"? All this stuff was already available to modders/third-party devs through
the SDK program. The only news here is that they made it available on Github.

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DigitalSea
I am not a game developer, nor do I have access to the SDK program you speak
of... It's considered opening it up because it means developers like myself
who don't developer for these games can get a glimpse of what is going on
under the hood without needing to register for any developer program.

Opening it up as in making it easier for the general public on Github to view.
No need for the cynicism.

~~~
stonemetal
The sdk is available through steam if you have that installed. It also used to
be available on their website and mirrored around the internet on sites like
gamespy. There was never any need to register for a developer program or
anything like that. It was always set up for teenagers to grab it and play
around. The only thing that has changed is it now has a github presence.

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catmanjan
Neat! I wish more companies would do this after declaring their software
deprecated.

~~~
Narishma
They did this since the day they released the game, or shortly after. This
isn't the source code of the engine, it's just the SDK that people use to make
mods.

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notastartup
this is pretty cool but I Guess we can't use it to make our own commercial
games.

