Crowbar Collective
8 members DeveloperCrowbar Collective, formed by the Black Mesa Development Team, is a new game studio.
Currently I'm the lead level designer on Black Mesa, which has won a few MODDB unreleased Mod of the Year awards, honourable mentions from 2008 - 2011 and FINALLY Mod of the Year 2012! I have worked on a few mods in the past, Birthstar Frontline, as a Level Designer, Dawn of the Dead as Lead Level Designer and Lazy Devs Mod. I have one award winning Counterstrike Source multiplayer map called cs_xmas, which placed 3rd in the 2008 Gameflood Competition, Judged by Adrian Finol of Valve and Scott Nagy of THQ.
As of the 14th September 2012, Black Mesa has been released! Expect further updates to patch bugs, a steam release eventually, Black Mesa Deathmatch and of course XEN! Examples of my level design can be found in the gallery below. I will update it randomly with new bits and pieces when they are done. Currently I'm working as lead designer on Xen, with some sideline work on the Multiplayer component of Black Mesa.
Crowbar Collective, formed by the Black Mesa Development Team, is a new game studio.
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Nah, as long as they credit us, it's fine :)
Do guys feel weird about some people using Your mod content?
Hello Stormseeker,
I'm a student in video game 3D. I find your works incredible!
Where did you learn level design? Are you working in video game compagny?
Samuel, Bychop, Gauthier
I started making bits and pieces back in 1997 for Quake and then Quake 2 on an early version of the QuArK editor after a friend introduced me to custom maps, which spiraled after a while of playing games like Sin and Action Quake 2 and Unreal. Then I had a go at Half Life mapping on the early Hammer Editor. I also did some basic level creation in games like Age of Empires, Command and Conquer and its expansions etc. This kind of trailed off until about 2002 when I started using the Battlecraft editor to make some maps, just for bot playing, in Battlefield 1942 and Desert Combat, then Battlefield Vietnam.
Then in late 2004, I started mapping again in Hammer on HL2, first just a basic deathmatch level, then I tried some Counter Strike Source mapping, releasing my first map cs_xmas in December 2005. I'd also joined a mod team called Dawn of the Dead, which is still probably archived on moddb, and did a bit on a small mod called Birthstar Frontline, which I think they decided to go commercial, which I didnt pursue. When DotD fell through due to lack of interest, alot of the team joined the Black Mesa mod, which I joined in mid 2006 having taken some time out to deal with my second year exams at University. It's been Black Mesa ever since. I'm not currently working for a game company, although I did once get a nice email from a senior artist at Infinity Ward.
Wow! I didn't expect answer quickly. Are you studding in video game or are you very talented level design? :)
Level design is it hobby or gold for portfolio?
Thank you so much Mr. Stormseeker. You are an inspiration for me.
I got a 2:1 BSc(hons) in Computing and Marketing and took a teaching postgraduate, but I've not studied game design officially. Its always been a hobby, but I'm hoping there might be a level design, scripter or mission planner job out there. I've picked pretty much all the theory and art theory up as I've gone along (and probably a few bad habits). Hope your course works out well for you :)
I forgot you made cs_xmas, such a good map.
thanks, I should really get some pictures up in here of that.
Do you have an estimate as to how many GBs Black Mesa will be at release time? Disk space isn't a problem for me, just wondering, as Cinematic Mod 10.90 took up almost 20GB.
Well the SVN version of the mod is 16.3gb in size, at just over 88000 files. I should think the final version of the mod will be around the 9-10GB range, after we take all the test files out.