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KAREN LAUR: You just go over the mountains
over here, and you're in high desert.
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You get past Ellensburg, and it's high desert.
So I spent a lot of time out there getting reference.
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Most of the reference came
from Eastern Washington.
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I did a drive out to the Columbia Gorge
and took a lot of photos and also a lot
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of just reference imagery of just like,
hey, this is what desert looks like,
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and big cliffs and stuff like that.
That drive was two days.
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It was eight hours down, eight hours back.
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And I'm not even sure I spent the
night. I did, I must have done,
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spent the night down there. So while it
was definitely made for the Southwest,
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the local reference was out in the Columbia Gorge.
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ANNOUNCER: Good morning, and welcome
to the Black Mesa Transit System.
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This automated train is provided for
the security and convenience of the
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Black Mesa Research facility personnel.
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- My name is Mike Harrington.
I was a co-founder at Valve.
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I wasn't really used to big companies.
When I started at Microsoft,
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it wasn't that big. It was like 1500
people, like a big high school.
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Nine years later it was significantly
bigger. And I was like, oh,
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this place is too big. And, you
know, that was still like 1996.
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So they had a long ways to go.
I told my managers like a year before,
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like, I'm leaving. I'm leaving in a
year, and I'm gonna start a game company.
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And the first person I talked to was
a good friend of mine, Michael Abrash.
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But at that time, he was trying
to do something within Microsoft.
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And by the time it made sense,
John Carmack had convinced him
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to go work at id, so how could he say no to that?
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And then I was having lunch with
Gabe and I said, Gabe, I'm leaving.
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I'm just gonna leave, and I'm
gonna start a game company.
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He goes, I wanna leave. I wanna start a game
company. I go, alright. And that was it.
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- On the surface, we should
have failed, and realistically,
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both Mike and I thought we
would get about a year into it,
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realize we'd made horrible mistakes,
and go back to our friends at Microsoft
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and ask for our jobs back.
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But we did think that we knew a
fair bit about software development,
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that there were expertise that goes into it.
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I think we also had some pretty clear
ideas of how to design a company, right?
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So when we were building Half-Life, we were
also designing Valve at the same time.
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- We had no plan, except
for by then, like I mentioned,
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Michael had gone to id, and he said,
oh, you're starting a game company.
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You have to use our engine. So Gabe
and I flew down to Mesquite to meet id.
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We spent a good deal of time with John Romero, and he told us like,
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this is what you need to
do to start a game company.
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You need to go out and hire some level
designers and do that kind of thing.
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And we kind of understood the engineering part.
And then, because we were Michael's friends,
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we walked away with the source code to
Quake that day. We had no contract yet.
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We had kind of an idea of what it
could be, and they just gave us a CD.
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And we had kind of the crown jewels
of id. And that, you know, game on.
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DAVE RILLER: I think most of us had
no game development experience.
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We were either amateurs working in
our homes at night for fun, or we,
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some people were from the software world,
but they had never worked on a game.
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I think we had three or four people
in the entire company who had actually
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shipped a game when we started Half-Life.
We have to figure out what is Valve's first game.
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So we have to come up with an IP.
So everything is done from scratch.
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- Gabe came into the office,
and he said, I read this story.
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I read this Stephen King story called
The Mist. You know, it's Stephen King.
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It's got monsters, people in a
grocery store, fog comes in,
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monsters in the fog. Use your imagination.
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We didn't wanna write that as a game.
That wasn't really the point.
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But it was just the tension and how it felt.
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- Well, it was interesting. At first
we had two games. Greg was working
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on Prospero, and then Half-Life
was originally called Quiver.
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- My job was then build a team
and figure out another game for us
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to build. That'll be the second game
Valve ships. What features should it have?
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How is it gonna be different from
a normal first person shooter?
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- Every time the engine got a feature
for Prospero, Half-Life stole it.
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And then Half-Life just started getting
visually more impressive and cooler.
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And eventually it just, yeah.
Because it was gonna ship sooner,
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it just stole the resources from
Prospero. And Prospero just faded away.
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- So it had this character
who had like a floating orb,
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and it had, wanted to have some effects on it.
This kind of magical energy something.
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And so I worked with them on that and came up
with the first version of the beam effects.
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And they were using it. They were happy with it.
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And then people on Half-Life are
coming over and are like, what is that?
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Where did, how did you do that?
So very quickly that got into Half-Life.
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The disaster sequence has kind
of beam effects all over it.
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And we ended up using it for the Vortigaunts.
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[GUNSHOTS]
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[VORTIGAUNT YELLING]
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- There were a bunch of things that
we were doing that we thought
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would help us tackle the problem of what video
games were. And what video games were
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were a rapidly changing field where at the time,
90% of video games failed to turn a profit.
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And a few percentage of them were,
were very, very profitable, right?
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So it was a field that really valued talent.
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- Like I said, Gabe and I brought some people,
and then from there on out, we had to hire people.
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And, Romero said you got to hire level designers.
So we found some people who had industry experience.
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- Worked on Rise of the Triad
first as a pixel artist,
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and then went with Duke Nukem,
and then everything just went nuts.
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But I was sitting in my office one day,
and my phone rang just out of the blue.
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And I pick it up, and it's this recruiter.
Eventually he hooked me up with Gabe,
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and they flew me up here. It was a big surprise.
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- But then we started looking.
The nice thing that we had is we had
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a whole bunch of people in the
world who had been working on mods.
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And so we could start looking at those folks,
and that's where we hired a lot of our designers.
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- Steve and Guthrie, Steve Bond,
John Guthrie were my favorite hires by far.
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Other than Doug.
[LAUGHING]
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Gabe sent them an email and they're like, who is
this scammer? Never heard of these guys.
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Just kids. Like barely 20, I swear. And they show up,
and they're just the most creative, brilliant--
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- Clever.
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- Oh, fucking clever. Steve had the
magic ability to make stuff fun.
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- The fact that those guys had been hired to
go work on some game for some company,
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I think that was the start for a lot
of people that something cool is gonna
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happen because those guys were
already doing stuff that was cool.
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MIKE: And then Marc showed up and like,
Marc actually knows how stories work.
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You know, beginning, middle, end and all this stuff.
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And he had all sorts of great ideas. And he also would
just bring good ideas out of everybody else as well.
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- Like the person who wrote more
code on Half-Life was a chemistry
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major who decided to be an
IP lawyer in Atlanta, right?
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And he ended up writing more code than anybody else.
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Or the creature designer for most of
the AI for the creatures in the game was
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a manager at a Waffle House. It's not like there
are a bunch of people that you could say,
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oh, this person has a PhD in video game design.
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It was that combination of both finding
those people when it wasn't necessarily
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easy to find them at that stage
in the video game industry,
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and then also convincing them that it
was a better place to work than anybody else.
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- One of the things that I definitely
learned was how to hire engineers.
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And, you know, we needed some engineers.
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- For us anyway, we had licensed id's
engine. You know, we were using
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the Quake Engine. And one of the things
me and some of the other engineers,
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probably Ken, were talking about was
if it would be possible to use the
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save system to kind of like join our
levels together in a really seamless way.
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So you'd get to the end of the level, save stuff,
and then load some of it on the next level
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and have it just feel like the world's all connected.
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- And so we had like every once
in a while, a hallway or the train
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would get to a point, and you would
have a little stop for the level to transition.
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And so he wrote that code leveraged
on top of just the save load code to
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do the transitions. And I think in Half-Life 1 we got,
most of the transitions were a second or two.
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- I remember when we went from
8-bit to 16-bit, like, hey, we don't have to
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have all our textures fit in a certain 256 colors.
That was a huge liberation.
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JAY: The two tech investments we made
for Half-Life was to get to 16-bit color
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and skeletal animation for all the monsters.
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- But at the time it was completely revolutionary.
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Your Quake characters were, it's like a
text file of vertex positions over time.
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- I wanted so much more animation,
and I wanted to the animators to
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to have the freedom to put in 100, 200,
500 frame of animation if not more.
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And then you can do all sorts of other
things because you have a skeleton.
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So it's like, oh, I can hook on a gun to a character.
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I can start to make changes of
characters and replay the same animation
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or reuse most of the same model. So it
can swap out heads, we can swap out this,
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we can swap out whatever.
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- Like all the technology that went into
the game to make it as fun as it is
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was not available one generation before.
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So licensing the Quake engine, which was very
mature and had level designers who'd
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grown up just goofing around with it.
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- I wasn't into heavily into scripting
since back into Doom.
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Like my old Doom levels have a
lot of weird, odd events in them.
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I think I asked Ken, is it possible that I could
have access to the character's animation,
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like a trigger, like what I mentioned, I could make
the guys go into an animation, I could make them run,
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and then I would configure everything.
It was all hack. This is total hacky stuff.
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And that is mostly what I built.
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It was like things like characters reacting and
jumping out or made to look like. Or I'd push,
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I'd use a push brush to throw a headcrab out
to make it look like it launched at something.
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CHUCK: Or if a loud sound happened--
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BRETT: They would respond, yeah.
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CHUCK: Would cower.
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KEN: So Gabe's dictate was, as you walked
forward, something needs to happen
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like every three to five seconds.
The player stands still...
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DOUG: Didn't have to be much.
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KEN: ...the universe can be quiet. But if
they move forward, if they're active,
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the universe needs to play back
something needs to do something,
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even if it is a scripted sequence or--
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DOUG: Or even just a interesting sign or something.
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KEN: A sign, or a sound, or some vignette or something.
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So I came up with this interaction
method where you could do little AIs
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where the characters would talk
and interact with you a little bit.
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And then we wanted to do spectacle,and
that was scripted sequences where you could
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tell a character, you need to run here
and then jump into this animation,
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and then have a bunch of you
all synchronize your animation.
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'Cause it's somebody flying through
the air, they're smashing something,
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or they're doing something like that.
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DOUG: Yeah. And then test it and then figure
out like, oh, this is real easy to break.
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That was the roughest thing about scripted
sequences where we'd have like a headcrab
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jumping on a scientist or something. And it's like,
yeah, it works totally fine 90% of the time,
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but some people just sprint right at the scientist.
And sometimes we had to put 'em behind glass.
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KEN: Sometimes getting the level designers,
making the player want to do the thing
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that gives them the most fun is a very subtle art.
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CHUCK: The tentacle sequence is probably the one I remember the most.
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BRETT: You're playing it, right? That was the first time I think they melded together
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with play so closely.
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CHUCK: Because you had your trigger, and we wanted it
to be triggered. So by the time you start to see it,
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you see the scientist flying through
the air and hitting the wall. Then you could,
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you could look in, and you could see
the scientist being carried away.
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The tentacle itself is separate. It's on its own.
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And you bring the two together,
mesh 'em together, and boom.
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BRETT: It felt so seamless though. And that
for me was like, moments like that.
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And that might've been the first one is when you
start to see the the scripted events and play
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start to blend a little bit more than just ambience.
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- For god's sake, open the silo door.
They're coming for us!
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It's our only way out. Oh my God, we're doomed.
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DAVE: I remember Brett in particular had
done some of the lab scenes where scientists
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would walk from one area to another and
just look at a monitor. And they just,
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it gave them a little bit of life.
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A ton of the work that went into that
area was because we knew it was gonna be
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the beginning in the game, and we really
needed to make it a vibrant and interesting,
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fun place to be and explore.
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- So originally they were designed
to sort of be behind glass.
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They were just designed to be spectacle.
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- Yeah. Little vignettes.
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- And then all of the level designer's like,
no, no, I'm gonna put that right in front of you.
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And I'm like, oh God, how am I supposed
to make this work? It's not supposed to do it.
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- Get away from there, Freeman.
I'm expecting an important message.
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-The run speed for the player was so insane.
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KEN: Yeah.
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DOUG: It was like, what, 25 miles an hour or something?
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KEN: It was sprinting. It was.
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DOUG: You could get so far, so fast.
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And so you'd either have to make the
script a sequence like so quick that
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you could barely see what's happening.
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Most people weren't looking in the
right place anyway, so, you know,
207
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you'd have to like get their attention
with like a particle or a sound or
208
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lighting or something. And then you
wanted them to see what was happening.
209
00:14:26,825 --> 00:14:32,885
But when we playtested, and it's like a scientist
was like being pulled into a vent or something,
210
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like people wouldn't just stop and be
like, oh. Sometimes they would, they'd be like,
211
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oh wow, look at that.
212
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They'd just like, just run straight
ahead and just start shooting.
213
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- It's hard when you think back to
it to recognize that those kind of
214
00:14:46,875 --> 00:14:51,445
interactive moments were so new.
Like people just hadn't seen them.
215
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KEN: It was worth it because no
other games were doing that.
216
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No other games had that interactivity.
217
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No other games had that spectacle
playing out in front of you.
218
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And it just added that whole feel of Half-Life.
219
00:15:09,235 --> 00:15:13,965
Gabe had started to develop
this theory around interactivity,
220
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and the environment needed to let you do what
221
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you wanted and then react to it. So if
you did something, if you shot your gun,
222
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there needed to be a bullet hole in the
wall. If you did a thing people needed,
223
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you know, other characters needed to react.
224
00:15:30,246 --> 00:15:34,645
The world is acknowledging you exist. The world
is acknowledging all of your actions.
225
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And that's a huge part of reinforcement.
226
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[SIREN]
227
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[GUNSHOT]
228
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- And you'd have these conversations where
you'd be sitting in a design review and
229
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somebody'd say, that's not realistic. And
you're like, okay, what does that have,
230
00:15:47,755 --> 00:15:51,525
like, explain to me why that's
interesting. Because in the real world,
231
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I have to write up lists of stuff I have
to go to the grocery store to buy.
232
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And I have never thought to
myself that realism is fun.
233
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I go play games to have fun. And so
we had to come up with some notion
234
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of what fun was. We knew it
was an ad hoc definition,
235
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and it was the degrees to
which the game recognizes and
236
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responded to the players' choices and actions,
right? In behavioral science, you would say
237
00:16:14,566 --> 00:16:17,685
we were explicitly talking about
what were reinforcers and what the
238
00:16:17,845 --> 00:16:20,400
reinforcement schedules were.
Right? At that point in time,
239
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that was a useful way of making design decisions.
240
00:16:23,100 --> 00:16:25,025
[METAL CREAKING]
241
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The point I would make is, if I go up to a wall and
shoot it, to me, it feels like the wall is ignoring me.
242
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I'm getting a narcissistic injury when
the world is ignoring me. So does this...
243
00:16:36,355 --> 00:16:39,285
Like to me, I was trying to convey
to the user a sense of
244
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yes, you were making choices.
Yes, you were progressing,
245
00:16:42,575 --> 00:16:47,165
which meant the game had to acknowledge
that back view. If you shoot at a wall,
246
00:16:47,455 --> 00:16:52,125
there have to be decals. If you kill a bunch of
marines, the marines have to run away from you. Right?
247
00:16:52,385 --> 00:16:56,444
You have to have this sense of the game
acknowledging and responding to the
248
00:16:56,446 --> 00:17:02,765
choices and actions and progressions that you've
made. Otherwise it loses any, any sort of impact.
249
00:17:13,204 --> 00:17:16,964
HARRY: Ted and I, we were on the same page in
terms of what the game should look like,
250
00:17:17,204 --> 00:17:22,004
which would be just sort of alien
in a very naturalistic kind of way.
251
00:17:22,755 --> 00:17:25,484
Like these are, these are
creatures from another dimension,
252
00:17:25,685 --> 00:17:33,885
another planet that look like they evolved in a way.
And Chuck had a very, he came from Duke Nukem.
253
00:17:34,065 --> 00:17:38,965
He'd made a bunch of monsters that went
in a sort of a different direction.
254
00:17:39,185 --> 00:17:46,078
And for awhile the game had a hard time
coalescing around a single vision.
255
00:17:46,225 --> 00:17:49,158
- All the ones that looked like genitals were Ted's.
256
00:17:49,159 --> 00:17:49,750
[LAUGHING]
257
00:17:49,750 --> 00:17:54,960
And all the ones with shiny bits that
look like alien soldiers were Chuck's.
258
00:17:54,960 --> 00:17:58,260
- That was a thing when I first
came in, Ted's style and mine.
259
00:17:58,260 --> 00:17:59,740
BRETT: And trying to figure that out.
260
00:17:59,740 --> 00:18:02,166
CHUCK: Trying to find the harmony between the two to make it work.
261
00:18:02,166 --> 00:18:02,568
BRETT: Yeah.
262
00:18:02,568 --> 00:18:05,662
CHUCK: Ted had, he was, he really liked
the Wayne Barlow aesthetic,
263
00:18:05,662 --> 00:18:08,085
and I had a little bit different, but it worked.
264
00:18:08,685 --> 00:18:13,206
Ted made these really weird.
He did the headcrab, you know,
265
00:18:13,206 --> 00:18:16,365
that's pretty much the symbol of it all.
266
00:18:16,365 --> 00:18:19,686
And I remember taking his headcrab and
putting it on a scientist and making the
267
00:18:19,686 --> 00:18:23,445
zombie. Right. Well, we pretty much
had, we talked and it's like, okay,
268
00:18:23,685 --> 00:18:28,445
we'll do, you do that? And Ted did
the soldiers, I did the scientists.
269
00:18:29,205 --> 00:18:31,925
I did a lot of the aliens.
270
00:18:32,105 --> 00:18:35,525
And with the hornet gun I did. did the
hornet gun for that one as well too.
271
00:18:35,905 --> 00:18:38,524
You know the alien slave?
272
00:18:38,565 --> 00:18:41,085
Well I did some animations for the
bull squid, or bull chicken.
273
00:18:41,325 --> 00:18:45,685
I have to call him that.
But that's a Ted creature there.
274
00:18:45,686 --> 00:18:47,324
The houndeye was Ted's as well.
275
00:18:47,835 --> 00:18:52,300
BRETT: Yeah. A lot of the fleshy, if it's got
like over, like a lot of flesh on it, maybe too much--
276
00:18:52,300 --> 00:18:52,860
CHUCK: Yeah.
277
00:18:53,085 --> 00:18:54,244
- That's Ted, that's a Ted-ism.
278
00:18:54,545 --> 00:18:58,925
You can always tell Ted's designs,
because they're much more
279
00:18:59,005 --> 00:19:06,285
aquarium than... Aquarium and/or,
like Unspeakables, you know?
280
00:19:06,285 --> 00:19:09,685
- Oh, Big Mama. I forgot about Big Mama. Oh God.
281
00:19:09,744 --> 00:19:11,685
- It's like, you know, it's a testicle, right, Ted?
282
00:19:11,885 --> 00:19:13,360
- That's just so disturbed.
283
00:19:13,360 --> 00:19:16,439
- I concepted a guy in sort of a NASA spacesuit,
284
00:19:16,565 --> 00:19:19,765
a scientist guy. He was actually modeled
after a couple of programmers I know,
285
00:19:20,385 --> 00:19:23,625
big beefy, bearded Linux
programmers, you know?
286
00:19:23,625 --> 00:19:27,445
And so that's where the HEV
suit sort of emerged out of.
287
00:19:27,445 --> 00:19:33,845
There was a lot of desire for not having
a Space Marine or a soldier be the guy.
288
00:19:34,105 --> 00:19:39,145
And then Chuck Jones went off and
did a pretty different version
289
00:19:39,145 --> 00:19:42,645
of him that became known as Ivan the space biker.
290
00:19:42,984 --> 00:19:47,484
- Oh God. I remember telling myself, it's
like, anytime you make a screenshot,
291
00:19:47,875 --> 00:19:51,680
make sure it's good. 'Cause you don't
know where this is going to appear again.
292
00:19:51,680 --> 00:19:52,500
- We didn't know that.
293
00:19:52,500 --> 00:19:56,085
- And Ivan is the prime example of that one.
294
00:19:56,086 --> 00:19:58,625
So you're looking at it. Well, go
look at Quake. It's like, okay,
295
00:19:58,625 --> 00:20:02,605
I'm looking at that, and he's got this
incredibly boxy head. And you're always
296
00:20:02,605 --> 00:20:06,885
hearing don't put too many polys in it.
And it's like, okay, so Ivan got the
297
00:20:07,205 --> 00:20:10,524
the, the square head. And it was kind of an early,
298
00:20:11,155 --> 00:20:16,085
just a rough prototype of a
Gordon Freeman baby. And I remember,
299
00:20:16,525 --> 00:20:20,005
we didn't know what Gordon looked like. So it's like,
300
00:20:20,165 --> 00:20:23,244
I was looking for somebody, and I
found Mike Harrington. And It's like, Mike,
301
00:20:23,245 --> 00:20:26,564
what does Gordon look like? He said,
I don't know, put yourself in there.
302
00:20:26,565 --> 00:20:29,925
It's like, oh, okay, okay.
And so I went in and,
303
00:20:29,926 --> 00:20:33,804
and put kind of my likeness on the
early Gordon model in the game.
304
00:20:34,785 --> 00:20:36,098
And it kind of stayed there.
305
00:20:36,098 --> 00:20:37,845
BRETT: Did you have a ponytail?
306
00:20:37,846 --> 00:20:39,885
- Well, I was ex tattoo artist, so yeah, I definitely had.
307
00:20:39,885 --> 00:20:40,066
- Ah.
308
00:20:40,066 --> 00:20:44,272
- I don't, I don't have anything to work with now.
But yeah, at that point, I had a ponytail on.
309
00:20:44,272 --> 00:20:47,409
- If you play the game, you know that it's Chuck,
if you play multiplayer and see the model.
310
00:20:47,410 --> 00:20:50,700
CHUCK: But yeah, if you look on the
back of that, there's this little four triangles,
311
00:20:50,700 --> 00:20:53,080
and he's got a little ponytail back there.
312
00:20:53,484 --> 00:20:59,125
I did the G-Man. And again, that one was, Gabe
was talking about the cigarette man from X-Files.
313
00:20:59,140 --> 00:21:01,500
So we needed our own equivalent of that.
314
00:21:01,500 --> 00:21:04,405
- Because after a while, after playing
with the game for a whole,
315
00:21:04,425 --> 00:21:06,484
for a long time people realize like, hey,
316
00:21:07,405 --> 00:21:11,045
we made this character. And just in
this one office scene in the beginning,
317
00:21:11,045 --> 00:21:13,685
where he is behind the window and he
is talking to a scientist or something,
318
00:21:13,686 --> 00:21:18,365
and then he's like, he looks really creepy.
It was late in the day that we thought, oh, okay,
319
00:21:18,366 --> 00:21:22,484
well he's gonna be the big bad behind all of this.
320
00:21:22,485 --> 00:21:26,685
Like scatter him around in
places that you can't get to him.
321
00:21:27,505 --> 00:21:29,645
But he's there mysteriously.
322
00:21:32,895 --> 00:21:35,484
- There wasn't enough in the
beginning of the game. It's like,
323
00:21:35,485 --> 00:21:38,524
we need another monster. Headcrabs weren't enough.
324
00:21:38,526 --> 00:21:45,845
It got kind of repetitious. I think I grabbed
Ted and said, I need them to do this and this.
325
00:21:46,545 --> 00:21:49,085
And so he whipped it out in not much time at all.
326
00:21:49,900 --> 00:21:53,545
I'm gonna get the timing just right,
and I have no time to do this.
327
00:21:53,545 --> 00:21:57,685
I'm just gonna bang it out. And then
once it was working, everybody said,
328
00:21:57,686 --> 00:22:02,405
oh, let's go back and sprinkle them back in the maps.
329
00:22:02,484 --> 00:22:03,210
And that was this--
330
00:22:03,210 --> 00:22:06,260
- Yeah. Because then we introduced them
a little earlier than we were planning.
331
00:22:06,260 --> 00:22:09,045
- Yeah. Because they, they ended up
being, they weren't real tough.
332
00:22:09,190 --> 00:22:10,440
They weren't supposed to be tough.
333
00:22:10,440 --> 00:22:11,405
DOUG: But they were ranged.
334
00:22:11,405 --> 00:22:15,365
KEN: But they were ranged, and they were fun,
and they had a big show, and like,
335
00:22:15,605 --> 00:22:17,405
that was showing off a bunch of stuff.
336
00:22:26,205 --> 00:22:28,165
DOUG: I remember the assassin came in pretty late.
337
00:22:28,925 --> 00:22:32,445
KEN: That was it. It was like, okay,
I have a week and a half.
338
00:22:32,620 --> 00:22:35,379
It was already done. It was already
all modeled, already all animated.
339
00:22:35,380 --> 00:22:38,725
And the requirement was it couldn't
have any new animations and any new
340
00:22:38,965 --> 00:22:42,004
anything, so had to come up. I
grabbed a bunch of Steve Bond's AI,
341
00:22:42,305 --> 00:22:46,765
and banged that thing out.
I built a level, super crude,
342
00:22:47,425 --> 00:22:52,244
but it had all the right spacing and all the
right heights and all the right geometry.
343
00:22:53,015 --> 00:22:57,805
- Again, it's just a presentation where
this, this creature gets to shine.
344
00:22:57,835 --> 00:23:01,765
This enemy gets to shine and is
your entire focus for that scene.
345
00:23:01,865 --> 00:23:04,965
And it's kind of a memorable experience 'cause it's,
346
00:23:05,265 --> 00:23:08,125
it just takes place in a different
fashion than other encounters.
347
00:23:08,325 --> 00:23:11,165
You get knocked out, and there's all
kinds of, like, the lights go out
348
00:23:11,725 --> 00:23:16,044
and you get dragged through corridor and things.
So again, it's something you remember in the game.
349
00:23:18,120 --> 00:23:19,500
- And if they find the body?
350
00:23:19,500 --> 00:23:22,040
- Body? What body?
351
00:23:33,025 --> 00:23:37,845
TED: We just did a lot of playtesting
and did a lot of level building
352
00:23:38,345 --> 00:23:41,145
and used all of the monsters.
353
00:23:41,145 --> 00:23:45,725
and used everything that we had developed,
and started seeing which ones kind
354
00:23:45,726 --> 00:23:47,645
of stuck out a little oddly.
355
00:23:47,646 --> 00:23:52,615
Like we had the houndeyes that Ted had concepted,
and Kelly had done great sounds for 'em.
356
00:23:52,615 --> 00:23:57,805
And so they seemed like a very oddly
plausible sort of alien creature.
357
00:23:58,225 --> 00:24:05,764
And Chuck did what we called the panthereye,
which was this big black panther looking
358
00:24:06,205 --> 00:24:11,205
creature that also just had a big
red eye for his face and a big shark
359
00:24:11,365 --> 00:24:15,565
fin coming out the back. And
design-wise, he seemed like a, oh,
360
00:24:16,035 --> 00:24:19,205
this is a very useful creature. You
know, it's like when you design things,
361
00:24:19,305 --> 00:24:23,725
you know, you like to have a gradient
of difficulty, a gradient of
362
00:24:23,935 --> 00:24:28,085
escalation in threat. And so if we
had these hound eyes, then oh yes,
363
00:24:28,115 --> 00:24:35,205
this like panther, bigger, scarier looking
thing would be more of a threat.
364
00:24:35,206 --> 00:24:40,044
It was in the game for a long time and
then sort of just worked its way out
365
00:24:40,244 --> 00:24:44,965
because folks couldn't find a way to
incorporate a creature like that into the
366
00:24:44,966 --> 00:24:48,004
environment and make it seem reasonable.
367
00:24:48,605 --> 00:24:55,445
CHUCK: The stooka bat was, it was something that I had
did. Just a weird, another creature from the air.
368
00:24:55,865 --> 00:24:59,925
We had the chub toad that we were gonna
use as a feeding animal to help.
369
00:25:00,205 --> 00:25:05,564
And yeah, they had a mechanic to where they
were going to use this to distract monsters so
370
00:25:05,685 --> 00:25:12,040
you could possibly get by. And it pretty much
reached fruition to where we created the object.
371
00:25:12,040 --> 00:25:15,360
But then again, time became the factor,
and it had to get cut.
372
00:25:23,805 --> 00:25:27,244
- I grew up just outside DC |and so there's all these like,
373
00:25:27,744 --> 00:25:32,685
big, really banal office buildings,
and that's kind of the direction I went.
374
00:25:33,105 --> 00:25:35,145
So it started becoming a facility.
375
00:25:35,145 --> 00:25:39,565
And so I started making these kind of
linoleum tiles, and the drop ceiling,
376
00:25:39,785 --> 00:25:43,125
the concrete block wall,
the black and white tile floor.
377
00:25:43,505 --> 00:25:47,925
- She was like the texture artist for a
long, like for most of the game.
378
00:25:48,205 --> 00:25:51,360
It's just an overwhelming amount of work.
379
00:25:51,360 --> 00:25:56,280
KAREN: Originally I was hand painting all of the
textures, and you can really see a shift in some
380
00:25:56,280 --> 00:25:59,800
of 'em where they go from hand
painted to photo reference.
381
00:25:59,800 --> 00:26:02,524
The photo references are much, much better.
[LAUGHING]
382
00:26:02,645 --> 00:26:07,205
So I was all over Seattle,
Harbor Island, Gasworks Park,
383
00:26:07,206 --> 00:26:08,635
getting rusty metal things.
384
00:26:08,635 --> 00:26:12,885
What can I get good pictures
of that is vaguely industrial
385
00:26:13,585 --> 00:26:17,205
and interesting to look at,
and then how can we use this?
386
00:26:20,065 --> 00:26:25,805
And so, you know, sides of boxcars, and I
don't know how many hallways in Half-Life are
387
00:26:25,806 --> 00:26:30,045
the side of a train car kind of thing.
The Kirkland Costco.
388
00:26:30,145 --> 00:26:35,045
Lot of time in the Kirkland Costco
getting just packages of
389
00:26:35,244 --> 00:26:38,725
I don't know why I needed snacks or something.
390
00:26:50,145 --> 00:26:55,800
DOUG: The first year was all about opportunity,
and it, you know, it wasn't quite as focused.
391
00:26:55,800 --> 00:26:57,680
We were trying, we were finding our footing.
392
00:26:57,685 --> 00:27:02,165
KEN: We were getting into the three months
before supposedly shipping in 97.
393
00:27:02,505 --> 00:27:08,800
And it's like, this isn't gelling. This is really
not good. This is like a quick knockoff,
394
00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:12,855
cash grab, stupid, and let's not do that.
395
00:27:12,855 --> 00:27:17,316
There was a lot of disconnect between
what all of the different groups were doing,
396
00:27:17,316 --> 00:27:22,585
what engineering was doing, and what level design
was doing and what animation was doing.
397
00:27:22,585 --> 00:27:26,205
We had a bunch of monsters that had no
plans to get in the game 'cause nobody
398
00:27:26,206 --> 00:27:30,484
else was assigned to work on them. And
we had a bunch of levels that like,
399
00:27:30,505 --> 00:27:32,445
what's supposed to go in here? Oh, I don't know,
400
00:27:32,446 --> 00:27:35,484
everybody's gonna do a bunch of stuff.
And like, no, that doesn't work that way.
401
00:27:35,625 --> 00:27:38,605
- So here we were, all these people
doing all these cool things and just,
402
00:27:38,606 --> 00:27:42,248
everything's just this random collection of oh,
here's a cool moment and a cool this.
403
00:27:42,248 --> 00:27:45,725
And you know, and then it's gone and
you know, oh, now on to the next thing.
404
00:27:45,835 --> 00:27:50,125
Because the way we were building the
game was every level designer was kind of
405
00:27:50,126 --> 00:27:57,524
his own silo, his own universe. And I think that just
grew out of our kind of mod developer roots.
406
00:27:57,785 --> 00:28:05,040
But it wasn't cohesive, and it certainly didn't have
a strategy for like maximizing any of that stuff.
407
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:07,820
- You must have been in the meeting
when we reviewed all the levels.
408
00:28:07,820 --> 00:28:10,445
It was like the first time
everybody piled into a room.
409
00:28:10,465 --> 00:28:15,365
And Gabe had his crazy Hellraiser
chair with the beautiful Mac monitor,
410
00:28:15,865 --> 00:28:18,525
and we played. For two days,
he played everyone's levels.
411
00:28:18,905 --> 00:28:21,764
But I remember one moment he turned
around, he was like this with his hair.
412
00:28:21,766 --> 00:28:23,046
He's going, we're gonna fail.
413
00:28:23,046 --> 00:28:26,085
We're gonna fail, we're gonna fail.
And I was just like, I was like,
414
00:28:26,086 --> 00:28:28,085
it blew me away. I was like, oh shit, this isn't good.
415
00:28:28,305 --> 00:28:32,405
- You know, we were doing our best trying
to make this game and the story.
416
00:28:32,406 --> 00:28:36,205
And we had a schedule from Sierra, and it was
a tight schedule. And we told them like,
417
00:28:36,206 --> 00:28:37,244
we're not gonna ship this.
418
00:28:37,505 --> 00:28:41,605
And we realize that you're not gonna
pay us to continue developing this,
419
00:28:41,785 --> 00:28:43,245
but we're going to do it anyway.
420
00:28:43,555 --> 00:28:50,445
- Late is just for a little while. Suck is forever.
Right? We could try to force this thing out the door,
421
00:28:50,446 --> 00:28:54,084
but that's not the company we want to be.
That's not the people we want to be.
422
00:28:54,086 --> 00:28:57,447
That's not the relationship we want to have with our customers.
423
00:28:57,447 --> 00:29:00,284
- And so we kind of, Kelly and I kind of sat down and,
424
00:29:00,505 --> 00:29:04,325
and sort of tried to take an inventory
of all the cool stuff we had built and
425
00:29:04,385 --> 00:29:08,285
why weren't we just, you know,
building more on top of that.
426
00:29:08,286 --> 00:29:13,125
And those discussions kind of led to
our us building this kind of,
427
00:29:13,405 --> 00:29:17,725
design cabal process to try to give
some cohesion to the game and kind of
428
00:29:17,845 --> 00:29:19,585
changing the way we were approaching it.
429
00:29:19,585 --> 00:29:23,365
- And so a cabal was a small group of people,
430
00:29:23,385 --> 00:29:26,605
a multidisciplinary group. You know,
there's like an art, artists,
431
00:29:26,606 --> 00:29:29,485
level designers, engineers, and
you know, everything. And in that,
432
00:29:30,165 --> 00:29:36,365
small team that would write up a spec for a level.
There was the arc that Marc had written.
433
00:29:36,705 --> 00:29:38,725
So we knew how that fit into the story.
434
00:29:39,345 --> 00:29:40,845
- And we got a small group of people
435
00:29:41,125 --> 00:29:45,325
together and we started with the beginning.
And we went through how literally
436
00:29:45,326 --> 00:29:48,365
what map do we need to build to tell
us the story we're gonna have to tell,
437
00:29:48,745 --> 00:29:51,878
and then what does that connect to,
and what's the next piece and the next piece.
438
00:29:52,185 --> 00:29:55,485
- The strongest and most influential
thing that came out of them was, to me,
439
00:29:55,486 --> 00:29:58,605
the sketches. And they were really
the visual meeting notes, right?
440
00:29:58,985 --> 00:30:01,245
MIKE: We came up with a formula for how that worked.
441
00:30:01,505 --> 00:30:04,365
We had a certain percentage of the
time where you were fighting, certain
442
00:30:04,366 --> 00:30:07,285
percentage of the time where you're
exploring, a certain percentage of the time
443
00:30:07,286 --> 00:30:09,285
where you're solving puzzles.
444
00:30:09,980 --> 00:30:15,240
And so we could apply that uniformly through the game. And that worked pretty well.
445
00:30:16,045 --> 00:30:21,815
- Testing, testing, everything seems to be in order.
446
00:30:22,405 --> 00:30:25,774
- Good morning. And welcome to
the Black Mesa Transit system.
447
00:30:26,525 --> 00:30:31,375
This automated train is provided for the
security and convenience of the Black
448
00:30:31,605 --> 00:30:33,415
Mesa research facility personnel.
449
00:30:34,195 --> 00:30:38,335
The whole opening of the game was
specifically a reaction to how all the other
450
00:30:38,336 --> 00:30:42,175
first person shooters were, whether
they had cutscenes or not.
451
00:30:42,525 --> 00:30:46,655
Like sometimes like they would just
open without a cut scene. But you know,
452
00:30:46,656 --> 00:30:49,975
you're standing in a room with a gun and
you're gonna, there's a thing attacking you.
453
00:30:50,355 --> 00:30:53,815
So we could look at examples of all that,
and I think there was expectation that
454
00:30:53,816 --> 00:30:58,455
that's what Half-Life had to do
because every other game was doing it.
455
00:30:58,775 --> 00:31:03,095
- I can't tell you the number of people who
started up the game, were staring at it,
456
00:31:03,155 --> 00:31:07,118
and then accidentally bumped their
mouse and realized this is live.
457
00:31:07,118 --> 00:31:07,415
- Yeah.
458
00:31:07,915 --> 00:31:12,375
- And as simple as that sounds, it
was mind blowing for so many people
459
00:31:12,695 --> 00:31:15,804
'cause it was too much going on. This
isn't real time, this is a recording.
460
00:31:15,805 --> 00:31:17,495
- That was sort of the way we, you know,
461
00:31:17,735 --> 00:31:21,975
stumbled through a lot of the
new narrative tricks was like,
462
00:31:21,976 --> 00:31:26,015
well what can we do? You could
do this in a movie or a story,
463
00:31:26,115 --> 00:31:28,895
but nobody's doing this in first person shooters.
464
00:31:29,075 --> 00:31:33,655
- You're this anonymous scientist, and
you're riding on this train into work, and
465
00:31:33,755 --> 00:31:37,015
rolled the credits at the beginning.
It was kind of like a cinematic experience,
466
00:31:37,016 --> 00:31:39,255
almost like, I don't think games
had really gone down that road.
467
00:31:39,365 --> 00:31:41,575
It's so funny to look at it
now because it's so primitive.
468
00:31:41,576 --> 00:31:44,615
But at the time it felt like you
were really in this Black Mesa world.
469
00:31:48,895 --> 00:31:52,014
- Pre-disaster survived from the first year.
470
00:31:52,295 --> 00:31:56,375
So a lot of that geometry was from
that first version of the game
471
00:31:56,595 --> 00:31:58,535
but in a very minimal way. Just some,
472
00:31:58,755 --> 00:32:04,449
the basic style of some of the hallways, the curved
corners in the hallways, things like that.
473
00:32:04,685 --> 00:32:11,254
They more became sort of like Lego pieces that John
could use and stitch together and extrude.
474
00:32:11,355 --> 00:32:16,215
And I know Brett did a lot of the raw
geometry from pre-disaster and then
475
00:32:16,245 --> 00:32:19,054
John did most of the work to ship it.
476
00:32:19,195 --> 00:32:22,455
And then the post and the train
ride was all John, I think.
477
00:32:22,995 --> 00:32:29,275
- The sector C. So those were heavily
influenced by NASA control rooms
478
00:32:29,276 --> 00:32:35,015
with my favorite green hammerite,
really influenced a lot of like the starting,
479
00:32:35,075 --> 00:32:38,455
we started with the kind of the
consoles. I'm trying to remember.
480
00:32:38,655 --> 00:32:41,465
And then there was just lots of
hallways, and people were getting lost.
481
00:32:41,465 --> 00:32:46,304
And I did the color stripes to
help people follow them places.
482
00:32:46,305 --> 00:32:49,205
- One of the things that was actually
super exciting was how quotidian,
483
00:32:49,605 --> 00:32:53,965
a lot of it really was. You know,
the lunchroom with the microwave.
484
00:32:54,925 --> 00:32:56,639
You'd press the button, and would go splat.
485
00:32:56,640 --> 00:32:58,520
- My god, what are you doing?
486
00:32:58,995 --> 00:33:02,485
- Yeah. All this work so you can start a
microwave and blow up some soup,
487
00:33:02,495 --> 00:33:07,280
which was a reference to real
life because that happened
488
00:33:07,280 --> 00:33:10,120
regularly. Like we regularly
accidentally blow up soup.
489
00:33:10,120 --> 00:33:11,558
- That was later mostly, wasn't it?
490
00:33:12,015 --> 00:33:19,565
- There were a few people who were just
challenged with kitchen appliances and
491
00:33:19,625 --> 00:33:24,125
at one point we had a company fire.
We had a lot of things going on in that kitchen.
492
00:33:24,545 --> 00:33:28,725
- All of that stuff had a real kind of eloquence that
493
00:33:29,385 --> 00:33:34,085
in the late nineties, in a world where
everything was so over the top.
494
00:33:34,305 --> 00:33:36,205
But we still got to go on flights of fancy.
495
00:33:39,595 --> 00:33:41,925
- Welcome to the HEV.
496
00:33:43,605 --> 00:33:49,714
- I think like a super pivotal moment for me
was when we came in this one morning
497
00:33:49,714 --> 00:33:54,325
and we saw the test chamber sequence that Kelly and
498
00:33:54,835 --> 00:33:59,565
John Guthrie, and Wedge was
in that office, and Dario, Driller,
499
00:33:59,566 --> 00:34:03,165
they were all in this corner dark office
where so much cool stuff happened.
500
00:34:03,465 --> 00:34:07,805
But so Kelly and John stayed up all night
and did the test chamber sequence.
501
00:34:07,806 --> 00:34:10,045
And it's pretty much like the one we shipped.
502
00:34:10,045 --> 00:34:13,524
- That was a lot of what went on in that
room that we called the submarine.
503
00:34:13,545 --> 00:34:19,225
It was just improvisation, you know,
just what can we do to solve this problem?
504
00:34:19,225 --> 00:34:23,165
How do we connect what's happening before
to what's happening after? This needs
505
00:34:23,166 --> 00:34:27,315
to be somehow important, but
we just don't know what to do.
506
00:34:27,315 --> 00:34:29,045
- John and I talked about it. I went home that night,
507
00:34:29,045 --> 00:34:30,843
and I sort of sketched out like, you know,
508
00:34:30,844 --> 00:34:34,205
maybe we could do something
cinematic. We'll take the camera away,
509
00:34:34,574 --> 00:34:38,685
we'll turn the lights off, we'll do sounds,
we'll just throw everything we can at it.
510
00:34:38,686 --> 00:34:43,844
We built that basically that day.
It was just a sort of a one day throw it together.
511
00:34:43,985 --> 00:34:45,313
That's how fast we were moving.
512
00:34:45,313 --> 00:34:47,005
- They had audio, right? We had the script.
513
00:34:47,005 --> 00:34:50,284
- Yeah. Yeah. It's like the heartbeat and the
breathing, all that stuff was in there.
514
00:34:50,745 --> 00:34:58,086
And I played through it and it was like, damn, I have
not seen this in any medium in anything before,
515
00:34:58,086 --> 00:35:02,645
experienced something like this where this
immersive experience of this actually
516
00:35:02,646 --> 00:35:08,018
happening like this. And at that point it's
like, okay, I see what it is we're doing.
517
00:35:08,018 --> 00:35:16,425
And it's this kind of immersive, unbroken
experience that happens to you, the player.
518
00:35:16,425 --> 00:35:22,405
And then that was this key principle
about how we never take you out of that role.
519
00:35:22,575 --> 00:35:28,424
- Personally, the difference between before the
disaster sequence and after disaster sequence,
520
00:35:28,425 --> 00:35:35,364
I felt we really had, I had an understanding that
this product was gonna be special or it was gonna be
521
00:35:35,364 --> 00:35:36,955
possible it was gonna be tied together.
522
00:35:36,955 --> 00:35:45,125
Whereas before that there was a lot of
really good stuff and a lot of little things all disconnected.
523
00:35:45,126 --> 00:35:50,500
But we, man, well you guys managed to tie two very
different parts of the game together really well.
524
00:35:50,500 --> 00:35:54,520
And I thought, okay, now I feel like we're on a track
for finishing this product. To me,
525
00:35:54,526 --> 00:35:59,205
it it shifted my brain to have a lot of
confidence that this product's coming
526
00:35:59,405 --> 00:36:03,005
together rather than just generating
a lot of content that exists
527
00:36:03,364 --> 00:36:04,725
independently of other content.
528
00:36:05,105 --> 00:36:09,085
- One of the ways we were funding our
development was we sold a preview copy of
529
00:36:09,086 --> 00:36:11,725
Half-Life to a video card company.
I forget which one.
530
00:36:12,385 --> 00:36:16,325
And so they had in their contract that
we had to deliver it to them by a certain
531
00:36:16,355 --> 00:36:19,725
date. And we got like the first
three levels done for them. It was,
532
00:36:19,745 --> 00:36:23,484
it was really a good milestone for us
just, you know, from working as a company.
533
00:36:23,765 --> 00:36:26,964
'Cause hey, there was a deliverable.
We got it done. And you know,
534
00:36:26,966 --> 00:36:31,884
we shipped off to them, and then I swear
the next day it leaked. And I was just
535
00:36:32,335 --> 00:36:35,085
livid at first, which was stupid.
But I was just like, agh,
536
00:36:35,205 --> 00:36:38,344
I can't believe you guys let this get out.
Like, you know, this wasn't us, you know?
537
00:36:38,344 --> 00:36:43,005
And then it turned into something amazing
where people started playing it and it
538
00:36:43,006 --> 00:36:45,045
was all over. And we started seeing it
539
00:36:45,046 --> 00:36:49,044
online, what people are thinking about
it. And I forget which magazine who said,
540
00:36:49,075 --> 00:36:53,044
usually we don't review beta software,
but they reviewed it and said,
541
00:36:53,046 --> 00:36:57,524
this is awesome. And that gave us a
tremendous amount of confidence.
542
00:36:57,526 --> 00:37:02,325
It was an outside validation of
what we were trying to do,
543
00:37:02,585 --> 00:37:03,685
that it was the right thing.
544
00:37:09,325 --> 00:37:13,125
DOUG: I think just with first person
shooters already kind of,
545
00:37:13,155 --> 00:37:17,185
they were kinda like the vowels of,
of weapons you put into first person.
546
00:37:17,185 --> 00:37:20,325
You gotta have a shotgun,
and there's obviously a pistol,
547
00:37:20,326 --> 00:37:24,285
you need your, your weapon that's
going to make you struggle,
548
00:37:24,485 --> 00:37:26,285
drive you to get another weapon.
549
00:37:26,715 --> 00:37:30,565
KEN: That was a lesson in how to make all of
your weapons as orthogonal as possible.
550
00:37:30,625 --> 00:37:37,525
So each one did something completely different.
All the crazy weapons, those are my fault.
551
00:37:37,625 --> 00:37:42,879
So I did like the rocket launcher,
and the Gauss gun, and the snarks.
552
00:37:48,085 --> 00:37:51,005
- I like snarks. Snarks always made me laugh.
553
00:37:51,005 --> 00:37:53,844
It was just always funny to watch
people run away from the snarks.
554
00:37:54,145 --> 00:37:57,965
- The squeak grenade. Yeah, it's called
the snark. But I wanted something,
555
00:37:57,966 --> 00:38:00,726
a little creature that you could bring
up and hold, and you could throw it out,
556
00:38:00,726 --> 00:38:02,085
and it would just start running.
557
00:38:02,085 --> 00:38:05,005
'Cause people were camping, and everybody
hated campers at that point.
558
00:38:05,265 --> 00:38:08,364
So you wanted the anti-camp
weapon, but it was kind of,
559
00:38:08,425 --> 00:38:11,725
you could literally find a little hidey
hole and just sit out there and just
560
00:38:11,726 --> 00:38:16,165
throw out 30 of 'em. And they're all
over the map. I had a cat and you,
561
00:38:16,166 --> 00:38:18,085
you'd sit there, you'd do
your finger. Blue, yeah.
562
00:38:18,086 --> 00:38:20,924
You'd do your finger towards him, and
he'd get mad at you, and he'd swat.
563
00:38:20,926 --> 00:38:24,605
So that was the inspiration for
that particular animation.
564
00:38:25,105 --> 00:38:29,325
And then the other, that big,
uh, alien creature with the, um, we,
565
00:38:29,326 --> 00:38:32,685
we needed some kind of alien weapon.
Drew that one, built that one,
566
00:38:32,685 --> 00:38:35,805
animated that one, but that was also another
one that would, whenever you would,
567
00:38:36,025 --> 00:38:39,725
you could get in a corner and just shoot them
in the air 'cause the hornets would track.
568
00:38:39,725 --> 00:38:44,525
I think that was the biggest thrill is
brainstorming these with your crew,
569
00:38:44,905 --> 00:38:48,285
making them, building them, putting them
in the game, and then playing with them.
570
00:38:48,286 --> 00:38:49,585
And then they're fun.
571
00:38:49,585 --> 00:38:52,405
- So there's sort of a trope of having a melee weapon.
572
00:38:52,445 --> 00:38:57,045
I think it was Steve Bond and Ken Birdwell
and I were saying we wanted a device
573
00:38:57,046 --> 00:39:00,685
where the world was reacting to. It was
really goes back to that theory of fun.
574
00:39:00,785 --> 00:39:03,404
But we were just running around
like idiots smacking the wall.
575
00:39:03,835 --> 00:39:05,605
It's an odd thing to know in retrospect,
576
00:39:05,625 --> 00:39:10,625
but at the time it felt profoundly
satisfying to be able to smack walls.
577
00:39:10,625 --> 00:39:14,499
And that was just an example of
how that fairly abstract notion
578
00:39:14,499 --> 00:39:20,004
of what fun was ended up translating into
a set of decisions that were really visceral.
579
00:39:20,150 --> 00:39:23,820
When you're going around whacking a wall, a crowbar
is an obvious thing to whack the wall with.
580
00:39:23,820 --> 00:39:25,820
[WOOD BREAKING]
581
00:39:30,800 --> 00:39:32,560
[CREATURE NOISE]
582
00:39:33,080 --> 00:39:34,240
[GUNSHOTS]
583
00:39:36,200 --> 00:39:39,140
[FOOTSTEPS]
584
00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:43,660
[GUNSHOTS]
585
00:39:43,660 --> 00:39:45,660
[MACHINE WHIRRING]
586
00:39:48,505 --> 00:39:52,885
- If the sound could let you know what's going
to happen, that really makes it powerful.
587
00:39:53,105 --> 00:39:56,725
So we're always on the lookout for
that in level design and monster design
588
00:39:57,685 --> 00:40:02,505
communicating because the AI is
often hidden from the player.
589
00:40:02,505 --> 00:40:07,085
So we use the sound to broadcast
the internal state of the AI.
590
00:40:12,665 --> 00:40:17,645
You know, soldiers, they tell you,
I'm injured, I'm gonna throw a grenade,
591
00:40:17,745 --> 00:40:22,620
I'm taking cover. You know, they are
broadcasting as constantly as they can,
592
00:40:22,620 --> 00:40:24,420
what's about to happen.
593
00:40:24,420 --> 00:40:28,925
So it was really important to try to
keep those states distinct so that as you
594
00:40:28,926 --> 00:40:32,045
play the game, you're actually,
whether you're aware of it or not,
595
00:40:32,100 --> 00:40:34,680
you're starting to be able to
tell what's about to happen.
596
00:40:34,680 --> 00:40:36,680
[WOOSH]
597
00:40:36,864 --> 00:40:39,805
- We knew he was a musician too,
so he could do sounds, but you know,
598
00:40:40,065 --> 00:40:43,565
he also decided he was gonna write
the sound engine. And then he wrote the
599
00:40:43,614 --> 00:40:47,885
soundtrack, and he'd never written a
soundtrack before. And he wrote the whole,
600
00:40:48,145 --> 00:40:51,405
you know, soundtrack for the game.
And it won an award, and it was crazy.
601
00:40:52,055 --> 00:40:54,765
- There just weren't that many of us.
602
00:40:54,844 --> 00:40:59,685
I had a little bit of a background playing music.
I understood the sound engine really well.
603
00:41:00,145 --> 00:41:04,285
So it was really easy for me to just
hook sounds in, and I understood enough
604
00:41:04,286 --> 00:41:10,405
about the level design side that I could
kind of connect those things a little bit.
605
00:41:10,605 --> 00:41:14,725
The sounds could come from anywhere,
and then I just heavily modified them.
606
00:41:14,726 --> 00:41:19,125
Usually those are animal sounds,
reversing changing the pitch,
607
00:41:19,565 --> 00:41:24,525
chopping them up and rearranging them.
Headcrabs were rats. The little squeaky.
608
00:41:24,715 --> 00:41:27,965
Yeah, that's a rat slowed way,
way down. And then reversed.
609
00:41:32,635 --> 00:41:37,965
- Yeah. The DSP stuff was another cool thing
that Kelly built when you got in
610
00:41:37,966 --> 00:41:41,924
a vent, it sounded like you were in a vent. And
that wasn't really happening I guess in,
611
00:41:42,185 --> 00:41:44,725
at least in Quake and other
games I was playing back then.
612
00:41:51,605 --> 00:41:55,045
- You know, we had these huge
silos, these cavernous spaces.
613
00:41:55,705 --> 00:42:01,980
The day they had their own echoey DSP,
it made an enormous difference, right?
614
00:42:01,980 --> 00:42:03,440
You believed the space.
615
00:42:10,415 --> 00:42:13,765
- Kelly tells me, oh god, Chuck
Jones asked him if he could,
616
00:42:13,985 --> 00:42:17,085
if the characters could speak
and have their mouths move.
617
00:42:17,086 --> 00:42:20,084
And Kelly said, you know, that's super easy.
618
00:42:20,165 --> 00:42:24,364
I could just look at the audio and
and see if they're talking,
619
00:42:24,645 --> 00:42:27,844
and do that, but like getting their mouths
to move is stupid, he says to me.
620
00:42:27,945 --> 00:42:31,565
And I, look, Chuck Jones told
me the same thing. I told him,
621
00:42:31,566 --> 00:42:35,452
making the mouths move was super trivially easy,
but knowing when they're talking
622
00:42:35,452 --> 00:42:39,205
and knowing how to follow the envelope
of the speech would be impossible.
623
00:42:39,745 --> 00:42:42,665
And Kelly and I just both looked
at each other and like, oh.
624
00:42:42,665 --> 00:42:46,645
And so I went back to my office, and
he went back to his office, and I think
625
00:42:46,645 --> 00:42:50,384
within an hour the characters were
talking and their mouths were moving.
626
00:42:50,385 --> 00:42:56,036
And it was only because we sat there at
lunch bitching about an animator who was 100% right.
627
00:42:56,036 --> 00:42:57,285
- Why are you leaving me here?
628
00:42:57,820 --> 00:43:01,800
Scientist conversations, Kelly and I
made that. When they're next to each other,
629
00:43:01,905 --> 00:43:07,640
one scientist will occasionally play a question,
and the other one will give him an answer.
630
00:43:07,640 --> 00:43:13,839
And it's not a script. It just might be,
it might not always make sense.
631
00:43:14,565 --> 00:43:18,424
- I am rather looking forward to this
analysis, aren't you?
632
00:43:18,424 --> 00:43:19,905
- I don't think so.
633
00:43:19,905 --> 00:43:22,945
But it had a bunch of personality. It was really cool.
634
00:43:22,945 --> 00:43:26,915
And it worked on getting those guys
to look at you and turn their heads.
635
00:43:26,915 --> 00:43:30,965
- When we first added the ability for
scientists to respond to the player and
636
00:43:30,966 --> 00:43:34,005
other things in the environment,
we call 'em what response rules.
637
00:43:34,260 --> 00:43:39,100
The first time that went in
they came flying down the elevator,
638
00:43:39,100 --> 00:43:41,645
and one of 'em looks at you and goes, oh, hello Gordon.
[LAUGHING]
639
00:43:42,165 --> 00:43:44,445
And then they explode into pile of
jibs at the bottom.
640
00:43:46,085 --> 00:43:49,900
- Hello. The automatic diagnostic
and announcement system
641
00:43:49,900 --> 00:43:53,770
welcomes you to the Black Mesa research facility.
642
00:43:53,770 --> 00:43:56,140
Remember to have a secure day.
643
00:44:08,285 --> 00:44:12,205
- I hadn't really started working on the biggest
part of the game, which I ended up shipping,
644
00:44:12,206 --> 00:44:16,125
which was surface tension. Prior to then
a lot of the work that I had done was
645
00:44:16,745 --> 00:44:21,364
the alien research labs, which
turned into questionable ethics.
646
00:44:21,505 --> 00:44:26,205
And all of that was ditched. Though some
concepts that made it through,
647
00:44:26,206 --> 00:44:28,105
everything was rebuilt from zero.
648
00:44:28,105 --> 00:44:31,364
But you know what did make it
through was power up. Yeah.
649
00:44:31,365 --> 00:44:34,245
Basically that geometry
survived completely intact.
650
00:44:34,585 --> 00:44:39,364
It was so closely designed for that
creature that because the creature
651
00:44:39,645 --> 00:44:42,805
survived, the levels
survived along with it. Yeah.
652
00:44:42,806 --> 00:44:46,125
There's this sort of central circular
thing where you have to rotate the train.
653
00:44:46,605 --> 00:44:48,045
You have to kill the Gargantua first,
654
00:44:48,045 --> 00:44:51,445
'cause he was always defending the
way out. I mean, you have to go to,
655
00:44:51,465 --> 00:44:54,925
you have to go to like another area
which looks very much like it was designed
656
00:44:54,926 --> 00:44:58,205
for Quake because pretty much it was.
[LAUGHING]
657
00:44:59,085 --> 00:45:03,005
There was a flooded pump room, and you
have to drain the generator. And then you
658
00:45:03,085 --> 00:45:05,565
could switch the power on and then
you could take the train out.
659
00:45:05,565 --> 00:45:09,405
Yeah, I remember him being totally central
to this whole thing. And then, well,
660
00:45:09,406 --> 00:45:10,805
how do we block the player? Which is,
661
00:45:10,805 --> 00:45:15,044
I mean that's pretty much like design
point number one for all level design.
662
00:45:15,114 --> 00:45:18,405
Okay, well how do we prevent the player from
just walking straight out through the
663
00:45:18,435 --> 00:45:20,565
exit, and you design backwards from there.
664
00:45:28,015 --> 00:45:32,795
- In the first year we built a lot of world
space, a lot of track as we call it.
665
00:45:33,090 --> 00:45:38,480
And the programmers would try
to fit the AI into the existing maps.
666
00:45:38,480 --> 00:45:45,442
What we did the second year was we built the AI in very constrained environments
667
00:45:45,442 --> 00:45:47,275
that showcased the AI.
668
00:45:47,565 --> 00:45:51,955
Let's make the ideal space for the AI
and then give that to the level designers
669
00:45:51,975 --> 00:45:56,634
to incorporate those elements into their map so
that it worked better and was more interesting.
670
00:45:56,650 --> 00:46:01,140
And that Gargantua was an example of that.
And the grunts especially.
671
00:46:01,140 --> 00:46:06,515
- Yeah, we had the AI that Steve had been working
on, and he had designed all these interesting
672
00:46:06,645 --> 00:46:11,634
encounters with them just in his test map.
And so he had had 'em up high and down low.
673
00:46:11,655 --> 00:46:14,594
And so basically we just gotta
re-leverage that. Say, okay, let's,
674
00:46:14,595 --> 00:46:17,515
let's start with the player comes
in low, and there's a
675
00:46:17,835 --> 00:46:21,436
marine on the same level. And then the
next one they're up high, and then he'd
676
00:46:21,436 --> 00:46:24,075
come running down. 'Cause it was
really neat to see them retreat.
677
00:46:24,076 --> 00:46:27,315
They'd try to run back up the stairs
and try to flank you from another side.
678
00:46:28,100 --> 00:46:31,865
- So Steve Bond, like I mentioned earlier,
was this really young guy who had
679
00:46:31,865 --> 00:46:36,794
been making mods in QuakeC.
Really the designer for so much of the AI,
680
00:46:36,835 --> 00:46:41,675
I mean all the stuff that's good about the
soldiers, the grunts you fight in Half-Life.
681
00:46:41,864 --> 00:46:46,155
- Yeah. We had a little bit of a language
that we could sort of use to say,
682
00:46:46,215 --> 00:46:49,395
you know, this is a place they can
climb. This is a place they can jump to.
683
00:46:49,396 --> 00:46:50,675
This is a good place to hide.
684
00:46:50,925 --> 00:46:54,510
These are good places to go in general
or interesting places. So, you know,
685
00:46:54,510 --> 00:46:56,300
the AI had a little bit of help.
686
00:47:03,935 --> 00:47:07,235
- We were trying to build something
that utilized, you know,
687
00:47:07,236 --> 00:47:10,710
the train technology that Jay was
working on. And we thought, well,
688
00:47:10,710 --> 00:47:13,580
let's give the players something that
they can control, but in a limited way.
689
00:47:13,580 --> 00:47:16,515
We couldn't do vehicles like you
see in Half-Life two. So we did this,
690
00:47:17,055 --> 00:47:19,515
the most constrained vehicle we could think of,
691
00:47:19,516 --> 00:47:23,114
which was the train. Players didn't
always bring the train with them.
692
00:47:23,455 --> 00:47:28,315
And so you had a bunch of these poor
people walking down these tunnels.
693
00:47:28,315 --> 00:47:30,209
- Oh, is that why you electrified the rail?
694
00:47:30,209 --> 00:47:32,609
- Yeah. And the rails were, that
was part of the feedback.
695
00:47:32,609 --> 00:47:33,654
- Kept dying from that.
696
00:47:33,654 --> 00:47:37,525
- Part of the feedback was, well you can just
bypass all this. So we made the rails electric.
697
00:47:37,555 --> 00:47:41,105
It's like, well maybe that'll teach
them to use, bring the train with them.
698
00:47:41,105 --> 00:47:46,405
But the basic idea was, let's explore that and then
also reveal some of the hidden deep parts of the
699
00:47:46,406 --> 00:47:50,404
base. You know, the abandoned areas where you might
get a lot more of the Xen creatures.
700
00:47:50,705 --> 00:47:52,285
You know, we had designed some of the,
701
00:47:52,515 --> 00:47:55,165
some of the ones that didn't make
it into the game to appear there,
702
00:47:55,315 --> 00:47:57,824
bats that would dive bomb you and
while you're on the train.
703
00:47:57,824 --> 00:47:58,364
- Stooka bats.
704
00:47:58,525 --> 00:48:03,365
- Yeah, stooka bats. And then we also tried hard to
not make it feel like it was the super linear thing.
705
00:48:03,365 --> 00:48:07,004
So we tried to give little branches, and
so there were some challenges there.
706
00:48:20,675 --> 00:48:24,925
- Well there is a, there was a really
good sketch that Kelly Bailey made,
707
00:48:24,925 --> 00:48:27,965
which basically charted surface
tension, and it was pretty extensive.
708
00:48:27,966 --> 00:48:30,844
Like it went through the cliff
side and it went through
709
00:48:31,335 --> 00:48:35,885
areas where tanks were and like
a lot of soldier holdouts. Yeah.
710
00:48:35,945 --> 00:48:38,885
It even went through the desert
with the cactuses and
711
00:48:39,165 --> 00:48:43,085
the helicopters and then across a dam.
It was pretty extensive.
712
00:48:43,086 --> 00:48:45,868
When I saw that sketch, I was so motivated.
713
00:48:45,868 --> 00:48:46,205
- Yeah.
714
00:48:46,225 --> 00:48:48,085
- To just start building all of that stuff.
715
00:48:48,385 --> 00:48:51,325
- So I ran ahead with a lot of
level design, a lot of geometry,
716
00:48:51,344 --> 00:48:54,485
and it seems like a lot of it
stuck in some way or another,
717
00:48:54,695 --> 00:48:57,844
which is really amazing. I did the,
oh yeah, the dam, which was funny.
718
00:48:57,925 --> 00:49:00,765
I just did that in a day, right? Like,
it was like about four or five hours.
719
00:49:00,885 --> 00:49:03,125
I did a Hoover Dam thing 'cause I like the Hoover Dam.
720
00:49:03,125 --> 00:49:05,085
- I saw a concept of the cliff side.
721
00:49:05,325 --> 00:49:09,125
I think Harry Teasley built that
render of the skybox,
722
00:49:09,185 --> 00:49:12,485
and I just thought, holy crap,
this is perfect for vertigo.
723
00:49:13,045 --> 00:49:13,925
Whatever we do here,
724
00:49:14,265 --> 00:49:18,685
we have to play on vertigo, and like
narrow little ledges, and you know,
725
00:49:18,785 --> 00:49:22,085
places you would like to normally
dodge a grenade, but you can't.
726
00:49:28,235 --> 00:49:29,455
- And that's, that's the moment.
727
00:49:29,475 --> 00:49:33,735
That's really the big part of that level
is that reveal and the play is kind of,
728
00:49:33,735 --> 00:49:37,788
kinda supports it afterward. The helicopter
comes in, you're fighting the helicopter,
729
00:49:37,788 --> 00:49:38,535
which is awesome.
730
00:49:47,945 --> 00:49:52,445
First of all I had a bunch of textures,
and then every time I need made new ones,
731
00:49:52,445 --> 00:49:55,335
whoever was working on the new levels
would be like, oh, fresh textures,
732
00:49:55,336 --> 00:49:59,113
I'm gonna use those. Somebody making
another level would start using them.
733
00:49:59,114 --> 00:50:02,575
And I was like, no, this is chaos.
We need to restrict this.
734
00:50:02,835 --> 00:50:07,375
So I started naming the texture sets
by the level that they were made for.
735
00:50:07,455 --> 00:50:11,735
I was trying to enforce some sort
of like, visual cohesion.
736
00:50:11,990 --> 00:50:14,479
And so that really ended up working.
737
00:50:14,480 --> 00:50:15,855
- There was one level I did,
738
00:50:16,655 --> 00:50:19,415
it was the introduction of the
sort of the bounce pads,
739
00:50:19,515 --> 00:50:23,575
the alien bounce pads in the, in
the real world. And because,
740
00:50:23,576 --> 00:50:26,935
story wise, like, okay, you're getting
closer to hitting the alien world.
741
00:50:27,185 --> 00:50:31,825
So I was, well, let's get a little bit of alien
world infection into the real world.
742
00:50:31,825 --> 00:50:36,725
So I had done it just as a visual thing.
John Guthrie made it 10 times better.
743
00:50:36,945 --> 00:50:39,565
And that's actually where he
found the photo of my daughter.
744
00:50:39,565 --> 00:50:41,965
'Cause I didn't put my daughter in Gordon's locker.
745
00:50:42,445 --> 00:50:49,045
I hid her in like this destroyed office someplace,
as a little Easter egg for myself. And they,
746
00:50:49,105 --> 00:50:55,045
and John went and put my daughter's photo in
Gordon's locker, which I think was a good decision.
747
00:51:05,045 --> 00:51:09,245
- I still get questions about stuff that
I spent five minutes on 25 years ago
748
00:51:09,835 --> 00:51:14,005
from people who've now thought about this
for 25 years. And they're thinking that
749
00:51:14,006 --> 00:51:18,285
there's 25 years worth of development
went into this. I'm like, on some level,
750
00:51:18,445 --> 00:51:21,405
when you start talking about lore,
I'm like, well there's Black Mesa.
751
00:51:21,755 --> 00:51:25,605
That was just a matter of we needed a
name for something that was evocative.
752
00:51:26,225 --> 00:51:29,924
- In that entrance when you get off the
train and there's that lobby where there's
753
00:51:29,926 --> 00:51:33,444
a big map on it. And when we were making
that map, that was fairly early on,
754
00:51:33,805 --> 00:51:38,484
I put a dot in New Mexico and then that
turned into, I think Marc saw that.
755
00:51:38,685 --> 00:51:42,924
He was like, oh, where is that? This is where we are.
And then he named it Black Mesa.
756
00:51:43,100 --> 00:51:45,000
- That is a favorite thing of mine actually.
757
00:51:45,006 --> 00:51:48,285
If you come up with a name for
something then, and it evokes something,
758
00:51:48,286 --> 00:51:50,125
then you don't have to write the whole story.
759
00:51:50,525 --> 00:51:54,725
'Cause it's a conspiracy plot.
Everybody knows more about it than you do.
760
00:51:54,864 --> 00:51:58,085
So you don't have to do, you don't
have to answer those questions.
761
00:51:58,085 --> 00:52:01,125
You just keep raising questions
and make the mystery kind of thing.
762
00:52:01,235 --> 00:52:02,808
- Like dialogue came in later.
763
00:52:02,808 --> 00:52:07,325
Also, a lot of the scripted sequences came
in later, and those helped to kind of
764
00:52:07,395 --> 00:52:10,725
sharpen the storytelling aspect of it.
Because I mean,
765
00:52:10,726 --> 00:52:13,725
setting expectations to get up to
the surface and then like, oh no,
766
00:52:13,726 --> 00:52:15,245
they're not here to help us.
767
00:52:15,245 --> 00:52:17,526
- The whole thing about diegetic writing, right?
768
00:52:17,526 --> 00:52:21,444
Like keeping the exposition in the game
instead of outside the game, you know,
769
00:52:21,594 --> 00:52:23,045
give a lot of credit to Marc.
770
00:52:23,605 --> 00:52:30,385
- After playtests, we'd realize that maybe you need
more of a dialogue cue about something.
771
00:52:30,385 --> 00:52:34,205
- That's when we started to have, do like
scientists who were literally pop up in a
772
00:52:34,206 --> 00:52:38,805
corner and go, go that way. There's a few of those that
we stuck in right at the end when we'd like,
773
00:52:39,155 --> 00:52:45,045
well we get one more session with Hal. He can say,
go down here, you know, go around that corner.
774
00:52:45,995 --> 00:52:47,364
- Well, so much for the government.
775
00:52:47,575 --> 00:52:50,843
Their idea of containment is to kill
everyone associated with the protest.
776
00:52:51,315 --> 00:52:54,364
Judging from your hazard suit, I'd
say you were part of what went wrong.
777
00:52:54,725 --> 00:52:59,725
- I knew Hal from San Francisco
as an artist cartoonist.
778
00:52:59,825 --> 00:53:04,904
He was also an animator and an actor
in some science fiction movies.
779
00:53:04,905 --> 00:53:08,844
So when we got down to the wire, we did a
bunch of voice casting, and nothing was right.
780
00:53:08,845 --> 00:53:12,285
And I just kept thinking of Hal, and I
finally just called him and said, Hal,
781
00:53:12,285 --> 00:53:15,444
I want you to at least talk to people
here so they can hear your voice.
782
00:53:16,025 --> 00:53:19,485
And I got him on a speaker phone, and I
had a bunch of people gathered in my office.
783
00:53:20,065 --> 00:53:22,565
And I'm like, okay, Hal, everybody's
here. And he's like, well,
784
00:53:22,875 --> 00:53:25,765
what would you like me to say? And
everybody was like, this is him.
785
00:53:25,915 --> 00:53:26,748
This is the guy.
786
00:53:27,425 --> 00:53:30,445
- Why do we all have to wear these ridiculous ties?
787
00:53:31,075 --> 00:53:33,725
- Another interesting voice thing was the G-Man.
788
00:53:33,905 --> 00:53:37,566
So we liked Mike Shapiro's work, so
we knew we wanted to use him,
789
00:53:37,566 --> 00:53:41,084
but we brought him in to do
Barney and also the G-Man.
790
00:53:41,505 --> 00:53:46,545
So we did a take on all the G-Man
lines with kind of a straight voice.
791
00:53:46,545 --> 00:53:48,765
And it was thinking that,
okay, we have something safe,
792
00:53:48,825 --> 00:53:52,004
but we're not super excited about
it. And give us something else.
793
00:53:52,225 --> 00:53:55,344
And he does does this crazy lizard voice.
794
00:53:55,344 --> 00:54:00,085
- The border world Xen is in our
control for the time being.
795
00:54:00,585 --> 00:54:05,565
Thanks to you. Quite a nasty piece
of work you managed over there.
796
00:54:05,565 --> 00:54:07,285
I am impressed.
797
00:54:08,145 --> 00:54:11,985
- And we took it back and everybody
just loved the crazy lizard voice.
798
00:54:11,985 --> 00:54:14,525
And so that's how it worked out.
799
00:54:14,825 --> 00:54:16,125
- Did you do the Nihilanth?
800
00:54:16,125 --> 00:54:16,965
- I did.
801
00:54:17,425 --> 00:54:23,005
Ladies and gentlemen, the Nihilanth.
Just imagine his head floating in space as a baby.
802
00:54:35,245 --> 00:54:43,245
I went into Gabe's office and I demanded Gabe to
either fire Ken or I quit. And Gabe just laughed at me.
803
00:54:43,805 --> 00:54:46,344
- [LAUGHING]
Correct response from Gabe.
804
00:54:46,344 --> 00:54:47,802
- Yeah. I was like, argh.
805
00:54:47,802 --> 00:54:54,885
- Until Bill got there, I was the oldest guy there.
It was hard because I had to go home in the evenings,
806
00:54:55,285 --> 00:54:59,765
whereas the kids who had just, the young
guys who just moved out from Florida or
807
00:54:59,965 --> 00:55:02,685
wherever, they did not have to go
home in the evenings. I'd go home,
808
00:55:03,065 --> 00:55:04,605
see my kids when they were in bed.
809
00:55:05,445 --> 00:55:09,125
I would come back down the hill to Valve.
Nobody else I worked with had to get up
810
00:55:09,126 --> 00:55:11,885
to get their kids off to school
in the morning. But I did.
811
00:55:12,065 --> 00:55:15,045
- You're wired to just take full
advantage of the situation. You're like,
812
00:55:15,046 --> 00:55:18,685
you put everything into it. So
when we say we worked 18 hour days,
813
00:55:18,686 --> 00:55:19,893
that's no exaggeration.
814
00:55:19,893 --> 00:55:20,251
- Yeah.
815
00:55:20,251 --> 00:55:22,325
- Not at, not at all. I can edit all day.
816
00:55:22,445 --> 00:55:25,805
I can make, I can design all day.
I don't have to worry about anything.
817
00:55:26,185 --> 00:55:28,486
You know, two guys from Microsoft
start a game studio with,
818
00:55:28,486 --> 00:55:32,086
with a bunch of incredibly capable,
you know, with an incredible team.
819
00:55:32,086 --> 00:55:35,125
You're gonna, you're gonna push
yourself harder than ever before.
820
00:55:36,005 --> 00:55:40,605
- I don't usually crunch real hard. I get it done in like,
821
00:55:40,685 --> 00:55:45,245
I come in, I work, I go home. And a lot
of people were living like, you know,
822
00:55:45,265 --> 00:55:49,620
really long hours, you know,
the classic, we'll all come in at 1:00,
823
00:55:49,620 --> 00:55:55,382
and then goof around for a while and then
work late into the morn, you know, late at night.
824
00:55:55,382 --> 00:55:56,765
I was employee 17.
825
00:55:57,135 --> 00:56:01,844
there was a, a woman that was the kind
of the office manager and eventually,
826
00:56:02,405 --> 00:56:09,205
Mona Lisa Guthrie came in as the, at the desk. I was the only woman on the team.
827
00:56:09,205 --> 00:56:11,200
[SIGH]
828
00:56:11,205 --> 00:56:12,038
That was not awesome.
829
00:56:12,725 --> 00:56:17,565
- I decided to become a baseball fan
here after the birth of my first
830
00:56:17,805 --> 00:56:22,805
daughter. So she's the one in
Gordon's locker, Isabel. But she was,
831
00:56:23,085 --> 00:56:26,045
she's very special needs.
832
00:56:26,895 --> 00:56:31,884
She's 25 today. You know,
cognitively, she's about three years old.
833
00:56:35,045 --> 00:56:39,465
So after her birth in the middle
of Half-Life production, it was,
834
00:56:40,145 --> 00:56:43,344
it was really hard. It was really hard.
835
00:56:43,665 --> 00:56:46,825
'Cause we were getting about
two hours of sleep at a stretch.
836
00:56:46,825 --> 00:56:51,464
'Cause she had to be fed through a tube
in her stomach every two hours. I had a,
837
00:56:52,295 --> 00:56:57,864
just a difficult time relating
to the world when she was a baby.
838
00:56:57,864 --> 00:56:59,705
I had a hard time just talking to people.
839
00:56:59,705 --> 00:57:03,545
'Cause I was just kind of tired and
angry all the time. Yeah. My wife,
840
00:57:03,805 --> 00:57:08,504
she worked at Valve for a while.
She did a bunch of textures for the game.
841
00:57:08,535 --> 00:57:10,545
Like I said, she did those soda machines.
842
00:57:10,825 --> 00:57:15,305
She did just a bunch of level textures.
She textured Big Mama,
843
00:57:15,905 --> 00:57:19,065
the sort of boss creature. She textured him.
844
00:57:20,055 --> 00:57:24,105
when Isabel arrived, she
obviously had a lot of issues.
845
00:57:25,205 --> 00:57:31,065
So, yeah, had to stop working
and stay with her at home.
846
00:57:31,605 --> 00:57:36,964
And it was the last year of Half-Life,
and we'd pretty much crunched that whole year.
847
00:57:36,964 --> 00:57:42,735
So, I was at work a lot. It was, it was hard.
It was definitely a hard year.
848
00:57:55,945 --> 00:58:01,353
- Games have often had this thing where
they're just a little too attached to Star Wars,
849
00:58:01,353 --> 00:58:06,385
Blade Runner, Alien. So it wasn't that
hard to try to get people to go,
850
00:58:06,385 --> 00:58:08,015
let's think of something really alien.
851
00:58:08,525 --> 00:58:12,975
Like what Xen was initially was you're
gonna go inside a huge alien organism and
852
00:58:13,485 --> 00:58:16,775
kill it or figure out how to turn it
on or off, or something like that.
853
00:58:17,215 --> 00:58:19,895
I didn't know you, we couldn't
actually do that. Or what was involved.
854
00:58:20,485 --> 00:58:25,415
- What does it mean to have alien architecture
or a planet that's biologically
855
00:58:26,415 --> 00:58:29,975
defining the structures in it as
opposed to what the tools we're good at,
856
00:58:29,976 --> 00:58:31,655
which is making rectangles.
857
00:58:32,075 --> 00:58:36,895
- And then slowly it scaled back till
it was more and more corridors,
858
00:58:36,955 --> 00:58:38,575
and that everybody was really good at.
859
00:58:38,795 --> 00:58:42,335
- People were finishing up stuff, and I was still
working on Xen because it was like,
860
00:58:42,336 --> 00:58:46,174
it went through a lot of iteration or at least,
we're trying to figure out what it was.
861
00:58:46,605 --> 00:58:49,201
Different people were taking
swings at it, either static concepts...
862
00:58:49,201 --> 00:58:51,775
- Weren't you in a bit of a
timeline crunch for it as well?
863
00:58:52,005 --> 00:58:53,338
- Yeah. It was the end of the game.
864
00:58:53,338 --> 00:58:53,535
- Yeah.
865
00:58:53,735 --> 00:58:56,655
- I wanted to cut stuff out and they're
like, no leave it in. And I'm like, yeah,
866
00:58:56,655 --> 00:58:59,581
but I don't have any, I don't, there's nothing,
I don't have any support for this.
867
00:58:59,581 --> 00:59:00,175
- Right.
868
00:59:00,195 --> 00:59:02,415
- And then after a lot of it was
built, it was like, oh yeah,
869
00:59:02,416 --> 00:59:04,815
we're gonna change the gravity
and give you a jump pack.
870
00:59:04,845 --> 00:59:06,066
That came later
[LAUGHING]
871
00:59:06,066 --> 00:59:06,935
And I was like, ah.
872
00:59:07,525 --> 00:59:10,935
- There's a lot of stuff,
especially in Xen where you know,
873
00:59:10,936 --> 00:59:14,415
that you're getting close to a first
draft of some things, right?
874
00:59:14,415 --> 00:59:17,695
'Cause we just didn't have time and
we got to the end of the game.
875
00:59:17,795 --> 00:59:24,125
And so we considered not going to Xen,
but the art concepts people did were so cool.
876
00:59:24,385 --> 00:59:30,365
- For the Xen textures, I was deeply inspired
by electron microscope imagery,
877
00:59:30,505 --> 00:59:35,445
and we'd had so much of that regular
structural texture material that
878
00:59:35,446 --> 00:59:38,485
I wanted to do something more
organic. Insects as well.
879
00:59:38,485 --> 00:59:42,125
I think there's a lot of textures
that were based on beetles. It was,
880
00:59:42,365 --> 00:59:46,765
that was really fun, and incredibly
challenging levels to make. 'cause the,
881
00:59:47,365 --> 00:59:50,964
that editor was not friendly for organic shapes.
882
00:59:51,405 --> 00:59:55,845
I built the little behaviors for the tree that
hits you if you get too close. And the one,
883
00:59:55,905 --> 01:00:00,805
the light stalk that kind of hides.
But Ken did a bunch of AIs there.
884
01:00:01,080 --> 01:00:03,400
The floating controller guys.
885
01:00:03,400 --> 01:00:04,366
- The flying guys were great,
886
01:00:04,366 --> 01:00:07,884
but you had to set up air nodes for them
to travel properly. I prototyped a lot.
887
01:00:07,886 --> 01:00:12,445
And some of those prototypes were
used in the final battle, I believe.
888
01:00:12,446 --> 01:00:14,565
And also for the Gonarch, which I think Randy did.
889
01:00:15,265 --> 01:00:19,484
- We at some point have to stop polishing.
At some point we have to like,
890
01:00:19,486 --> 01:00:23,444
it is what it is. And if the player
hasn't had fun up until that point,
891
01:00:23,475 --> 01:00:26,245
well then we failed. They're not
gonna get to that point. So who cares?
892
01:00:26,685 --> 01:00:29,005
It just has to finish, and it did.
893
01:00:29,225 --> 01:00:31,205
- And there's always Half-Life 2 to win 'em back.
894
01:00:31,365 --> 01:00:34,404
- I love that sensation of being
alone and inhaling dimension.
895
01:00:34,945 --> 01:00:39,885
But the experience that people really
liked in the game was scientists pop
896
01:00:40,045 --> 01:00:43,325
up, and Barney pops up, and you have
companions and you have this feeling of
897
01:00:43,875 --> 01:00:46,725
companionship around you with all
the other stuff that's going on.
898
01:00:47,025 --> 01:00:49,625
So a lot of people missed that, which I understood.
899
01:00:49,625 --> 01:00:52,925
And I think if we had thought
about the ending from the beginning,
900
01:00:53,025 --> 01:00:56,245
we would've figured out some
ways to do that a little more.
901
01:01:15,685 --> 01:01:21,445
- I remember coming back from downtown Cabo
very drunk and then running to the
902
01:01:21,446 --> 01:01:24,205
beach, but didn't know there was
like a six foot retaining wall there.
903
01:01:24,305 --> 01:01:28,125
So I just went right over,
and then I was hurting so much.
904
01:01:28,285 --> 01:01:32,365
I slept the night where I fell.
Yeah. I woke up the next morning.
905
01:01:32,365 --> 01:01:33,705
- I had never heard that story.
906
01:01:33,705 --> 01:01:34,881
- With like a really stiff neck.
907
01:01:34,881 --> 01:01:36,759
Oh my God. It's a good thing you were pretty young.
908
01:01:37,565 --> 01:01:41,805
- I remember after we'd gone final on the game,
909
01:01:42,725 --> 01:01:47,125
I was home one morning taking
a shower, and my wife asked me,
910
01:01:47,225 --> 01:01:51,845
It's done. Is it any good? Is the game any fun? I go,
911
01:01:52,325 --> 01:01:54,325
I don't know. Like, I hope so.
912
01:01:55,645 --> 01:01:59,884
- I don't think it's exaggerating
by saying if any one of the crew had
913
01:01:59,886 --> 01:02:02,725
disappeared for a month, we wouldn't have shipped.
914
01:02:04,005 --> 01:02:08,005
It didn't matter who they were. You know,
everybody was, was mission critical.
915
01:02:08,985 --> 01:02:13,402
- My inspiration from Valve, what I really
took away with me, was that the thing
916
01:02:13,402 --> 01:02:17,905
that is most important to me is what are
we making. Coming in as a texture artist,
917
01:02:17,905 --> 01:02:20,965
you don't have a lot of expectation
that you're gonna get to influence that.
918
01:02:21,225 --> 01:02:25,525
And I was able to have quite a
bit of influence on, on the what.
919
01:02:26,185 --> 01:02:29,085
- It was so fun to work with the
people who were making Half-Life.
920
01:02:29,705 --> 01:02:31,725
The collection of people were diverse,
921
01:02:31,865 --> 01:02:35,685
at least like in their professional backgrounds,
was kind of all over the place.
922
01:02:36,305 --> 01:02:39,484
And so figuring out how to
work with all those people.
923
01:02:39,585 --> 01:02:44,525
But also just the fact that we had hired
really stellar people who were good
924
01:02:44,526 --> 01:02:47,740
at collaborating, like the conscientious people,
925
01:02:47,740 --> 01:02:50,964
deeply passionate about what
they wanted to create.
926
01:02:51,475 --> 01:02:55,705
That just was a recipe for a
professionally, like, really good time.
927
01:02:55,705 --> 01:03:00,444
- It seems to me that one of the things that good games
928
01:03:00,665 --> 01:03:05,404
do is make two games worth of stuff
and then throw away the bad game.
929
01:03:05,945 --> 01:03:08,925
And fortunately Valve was able to do that,
930
01:03:08,965 --> 01:03:13,845
A lot of companies couldn't do that.
But backstopped by Gabe and Mike,
931
01:03:14,305 --> 01:03:16,085
Valve could afford to do that.
932
01:03:16,685 --> 01:03:19,685
- I always have absolutely nothing
interesting to say when people say,
933
01:03:19,686 --> 01:03:23,765
would you reflect on your legacy? Like,
I really don't look back a whole lot.
934
01:03:24,065 --> 01:03:28,405
I'm always excited by the future,
right? So to me it's like,
935
01:03:28,406 --> 01:03:29,865
I can look back at the things that we did,
936
01:03:29,865 --> 01:03:34,604
but to me they're just sort of like the
stepping stones to what we're gonna
937
01:03:34,606 --> 01:03:38,405
be able to do in the future. That's
just how I'm, that's just how I'm wired.
938
01:03:39,900 --> 01:03:42,360
[ELECTRONIC MUSIC PLAYING]
939
01:03:45,780 --> 01:03:47,420
[GUNSHOTS]
940
01:04:25,860 --> 01:04:26,960
Oh no.
97224
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