Colony 42
While technically not my very first foray into Goldsource level design, Colony 42 was a third attempt at that first foray’s concept, and the most “successful” by far. Many evenings and afternoons in high school were spent constructing levels from layouts I doodled in the back of my binder in class, adjusting existing models and textures, and then throwing entire levels out and starting them again nearly from scratch.
The knowledge I gained from working on it eventually solidified into a good foundation for my skills, but the mod as I had made it during the learning process simply was not fun to play, most areas were blandly lit and underdetailed, and while I originally had plans to finish it, go back, and redo the previous areas to the quality standards of the last maps, those plans fell by the wayside in favour of other, more interesting projects that could actually ship. Out of a sense of desperation, I went back years later to seal up the most recent level I had worked on, slap together a cliffhanger ending, and ship what I had, map source files included, in case anyone ever else wanted to finish the mod.
Colony 42 never lived up to even it’s schlocky potential, but it did inspire a remake in the form of C42: Rebirth, a mod by Andy “Urby” Morris, a fellow level designer and longtime friend of mine who graciously voiced a minor character in the original way back in 2009.