halflife.wad -- but specifying which one might give away its location.)hlcsg.exe -cliptype precise -wadautodetect -wadinclude lab17_storage.wad lab17_storagehlbsp.exe lab17_storagehlvis.exe -full lab17_storagehlrad.exe -sparse -extra -dscale 1 -bounce 1 lab17_storageopt_plns.exe lab17_storageMid afternoon.
This is Research Lab #17, buried deep underground on a remote island. When the subterranean river of slime was first discovered, along with its unearthly fauna and mysterious crystalline growths, a nameless branch of the government scrambled to install a research facility to explore its potential for military applications. Soon after construction was completed, the installation suffered structural damage due to the inexorable growth of the crystals embedded in the surrounding rock. In particular, part of the rail tunnel -- connecting the laboratory itself with the warehouse and the outside world -- weakened and collapsed.
This level consists of the entrance section and the warehouse -- and, of course, the river of slime. Be warned, something hungry lives in the slime. Nobody has ever seen it -- nobody still living, that is -- but it can be heard patrolling its domain.
The laboratory itself is also available as Lab17: SlimeLab.
What story? It's DeathMatch: just kill anything that moves, and have fun!
All the weapons can be found in this level, but they are not necessarily easy to pick up -- and the Egon Backpack Gun is rather well hidden... Navigation through the level, and acquisition of many of the 'high-powered' weapons, will require a fair bit of jumping around (remember: crouch-jump is your friend!) or exposure to unfriendly fire. Or both. Several sniping positions exist for those who prefer sneaking to running, but getting to them can be fraught with danger. Watch your step -- and don't go swimming.
The gauss cannon (aka "jump gun") is not available in Lab17: Flood -- but the Egon cannon is a little easier to find.
I would appreciate feedback from anybody who likes (or dislikes) this level. If you have something to say about this level, or an error to report, please contact me. Without feedback, how can I hope to improve? :-)
Both versions of this level have been extensively playtested by the following people, all of whom have made comments contributing to the finished product:
Storage seems to be slightly slow with only two people, but three or four seems to work out pretty well. I suspect it would support as many as eight or ten players before becoming too crowded; we have not, unfortunately, tested it with more than five at a time. As a smaller variant, Flood works fine with two players, and with five or six becomes quickly chaotic.
After completing LavaLab, the decision to build another lab to study another dangerous fluid seemed almost automatic, and SlimeLab was born.
As well as adding several new features to Flood, it was necessary to roll some changes back into Storage for the sake of consistency. Most of the changes are cosmetic, although there were a few glitches that we discovered when playing the previous release...
After completing SlimeLab (and its counterpart, Quake,) I decided to generate a matching counterpart for Storage. Thus Flood was born, and some of the features in it had to be rolled back into Storage. For a more detailed look at the history of the intertwined development of all four Lab17 levels, see Lab17: History.
We have been playing this level for at least three months, and there have been very few complaints. However, there are a couple of minor issues that I felt needed addressing, and a couple of consistency tweaks that have grown out of my work on Lab17: SlimeLab:
Primarily a bug-fix:
Also made a couple of slight design changes, nothing too radical:
Initial release.
Thanks go to the following:
This level is copyrighted 2005 by Peter Jones.
You MAY distribute this level through any electronic network (internet, FIDO, local BBS, etc) provided you include this HTML file, and keep the ZIP archive intact.
You MAY include this level in the map rotation of a "free" internet HLDM server, but if you do so I'd really appreciate an email to let me know you're using it! You MAY NOT include it on your server if you are charging for access to play on the server!
This level MAY NOT be included with any compilation packs UNLESS you ask me first and I grant permission.
You MAY NOT make a profit from this level without direct signed permission from me.
You MAY NOT modify this level (or any of the files in this distribution) in any way, nor may you use it as a base or template for your own level.
In other words: give it to your buddies, play it as much as you like, but give credit where credit is due, and if you are going to make money from this level, I want some too!