Black Mesa Interview
The new opening office... I wonder if you can set off the alarms again?
In 1998, one of the finest games ever to grace the PC, made its debut. Created by a newly formed development house called Valve, Half-Life set so many standards for others to follow that the creators themselves took six years to create the sequel. Sporting a brand new engine, known as Source, Half-Life 2 also provided fans with the tools and features necessary to create a whole range of modifications for the game. Perhaps one of the most exciting aspects of the release was Half-Life: Source, a port of Valve's first effort to take advantage of the capabilities of Source and the subsequent improvements in hardware. However, fans expecting a complete overhaul were disappointed. HL: Source was given new water and skybox effects, along with updated physics and AI, but nothing else was really changed; the same models and textures from '98 game were used, making the scant modern effects look out of place in comparison. So it came as no surprise when talk began of using the Source SDK and other tools to completely recreate the first Half-Life, but this time with high resolution textures and models and modern rendering techniques to bring the game back to life. Talk turned to action, offers converted to actual work and the Black Mesa (née Black Mesa Source) project was conceived. Two and a half years later and the work still continues, but it has been a very rocky road since November 2004 - site and forums hacked, source files leaked - the kind of trouble that only professional developers should normally face; fortunately all is now well and the team has gone from strength to strength. Claudio Todeschini fired some questions to Spencer "RabidMonkey" Rose about their work, progress and possible future!
YouGamers: First of all, thanks for taking the time to answer to our questions! I'll start directly with the first (and foregone) one: why did you decide to develop Black Mesa? Rose: I was not present for the founding of the modification, so I can't say anything with regards to the original idea and concept; but I myself joined as a level designer eager to recreate some of my favorite Half Life environments with the backing power of the Source engine. This seemed like a good opportunity and outlet to practice that, as opposed to doing it completely by myself.
YouGamers: A brief story of your team - when and how was it born? How many people are working on the game now? Rose: The team was founded by Jon Dominski and Jimmy Headdon, two forum members from HalfLife2.net, prior to the release of Half-Life 2. Using the now-defunct Leak-Free forums as a base, concept and pre-development documents were created, and a small team was created, which was probably close to 10 or 15 members. Now, we have over 50 developers in various departments; ranging from concept and art creation to voice acting and project management.
Related Stuff Games: Half-Life® 2
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