Black Mesa News

Attention, Black Mesa personnel!

Yesterday marked the official end of our mapmaking competition “LambdaBuilds: Escape From Black Mesa”. Before we get on to what's next, we want to take a moment to say thank you to both LambdaGeneration and ModDB for hosting this exciting event! We believe that these kinds of community-focused competitions are a great way to celebrate our shared love of Source Engine games, and are thankful to have had the opportunity to collaborate on “Escape From Black Mesa” with them.

[h2]Next Steps:[/h2]

[h3]Announcement of the winners:[/h3]

Now that submissions are officially closed, our panel of judges are hard at work reviewing all the excellent maps that you submitted over the past few weeks. Given the volume of entries, we can’t give an exact date for when the winners will be announced, but you can expect to get an announcement regarding the winning entries no later than October 31st.

[h3]Official Map Collection Release: [/h3]

We also plan to release an official collection of “Escape From Black Mesa” maps on the workshop. While all maps are currently available for download, this collection will provide a quick and convenient way for you to see the hard work of your fellow scientists for yourself. The collection will be released by October 31st alongside the results.

[h3]Post-event live stream: [/h3]

We want to be sure that the hard work of our community gets its chance to shine in the desert sun. Therefore, there will be a LambdaBuilds live stream showcasing some of the top maps that were submitted by our community members! The live stream will be hosted by the LambdaGeneration team on their YouTube channel, with the date and time to be announced later.

[h2]Have you joined the official Black Mesa fan page?[/h2]

In case you missed it the first time, our friends at LambdaGeneration launched the official Black Mesa fan page last month. Here, you can keep up with news about the game, see awesome fan and community content, discuss and share your modding work, and more! Be sure to join your fellow scientists today on the LambdaGeneration website.

That’s everything that we have to debrief you on today. Again, we appreciate LambdaGeneration and ModDB for hosting the competition, and are extremely thankful for all our wonderful community members who participated. For now, this is where we get off.

- The Crowbar Collective Team

Hey there, scientists!

We wanted to remind all facility personnel that there is still time to submit an entry for our mapmaking collaboration “LambdaBuilds: Escape From Black Mesa”. The deadline is only a couple of weeks away, however, so be sure to grab your crowbars and get to work! Alongside this reminder, we also wanted to share a few pieces of helpful information.

[h2]Where to find help:[/h2]

If you are needing assistance with getting started on your map, need some tips or tricks, or are needing to reference the rules for the competition, the LambdaGeneration Discord channel is the place to be!

The LambdaGeneration Discord can be found here.

[h2]Uploading your submission:[/h2]

While we have your attention, scientists, we also wanted to provide you with some resources to assist you with uploading your submission to the Black Mesa workshop on Steam. The first link below will take you to a guide on uploading your submission to the workshop, while the second one will take you to a download for Crowbar, which is a Source Engine modding tool. This should help ensure that your submission to the competition will be successfully uploaded for consideration by the judges.

• Link to to the Steam Guide
• Crowbar Tool Download Link

Remember to read all the rules, and submit your entry via LambdaBuilds to be officially considered!


That’s all for now! We are very excited to see what fun and creative levels our community comes up with, and we hope that you all have a great time making them!

- The Crowbar Collective Team

Today we are announcing that the Black Mesa X Intruder mapmaking competition has finally ended after two months of awesome work from both of our communities.

While we are sad to see it go, we are also extremely impressed by all the hard work you’ve done, and are very excited to test each and every one of the maps that have been submitted to us.

With that being said, here are the next steps for this event:

[h2]Judging and Announcement of Winners[/h2]

The first order of business will be for both the Crowbar Collective and Superboss Games teams to look at and judge each of the maps that was submitted. From these, the developers will select a winner, as well as a 2nd and 3rd place submission.

Given the time required to properly test and judge each map, we can’t give an exact date that the winners will be announced. Rest assured, scientists, we will be working diligently through all the submissions, and expect to announce the winners in the near future.

Stay tuned on our Discord and social media pages for the announcement of the winning maps!

[h2]Final Developer Livestream[/h2]

Shortly after the announcement of the winners, both development teams will conclude their epic crossover event by playing with and against each other on the top 3 maps. You have all put a lot of hard work and creativity into your submissions, and we want to give our winners a chance to let their work shine!

Given that the judging process could take some time, stay tuned for the date, time, and location of this livestream event. The announcement of the livestream should be shortly after we have announced our competition winners.

That’s everything that we have for you today! We appreciate everyone in the Black Mesa and Intruder communities who participated, and hope you had as much fun making the maps as we will have playing them. In the meantime, it’s time for us to put on our HEV suit and get to work.

The Crowbar Collective team

Make sure to follow Crowbar Collective and Superboss Games!

• Black Mesa Instagram
• @BlackMesaDevs Twitter
• Black Mesa Facebook
• @SuperbossGames Twitter
• Superboss Games Facebook

Greetings, scientists!

What is your favorite time of year? Ours is HALLOWEEN.

We are excited to announce our Halloween Level Design Competition called LambdaBuilds: Escape From Black Mesa, a collaboration between LambdaGeneration and ModDB. We are obviously big fans of both groups, and have been wanting to do a level design competition for some time. So what better way to mix our favorite time of year with two really great communities?

To kick off the festivities, Black Mesa is 75% off until Sunday!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/362890/Black_Mesa/

[h2]Theming: Eerie Escape Room:[/h2]

We want contestants to come up with their best design for a Black Mesa themed Escape Room. Maybe you are trapped in a science lab with horrifying Xenian creatures? Maybe you are stuck in the rubble after the resonance cascade? Maybe Gordon finds himself in the middle of a cactus maze and has to escape?

Don’t be afraid of sticking to the classic Black Mesa style, but don’t be afraid to be creative either!

While the theme of your map should be eerie, it's not necessarily “horror”. You don’t need gallons of blood or terrifying creatures to score points, We are looking more for a creepy, unnerving, or foreboding atmosphere. Can you creep us out with just the level elements? Can you make us uncomfortable without resorting to combat against various creatures?

While the focus is on the feel of the map, neither blood, combat, or other horror elements are against the rules!

[h2]Scope:[/h2]

We here at Crowbar Collective love to see creativity through constraint. It is where some of our best ideas came from. You may have an idea for a really large, sprawling escape room but, given the scope of this contest, it may not be your best interest to try and tackle the whole thing. Pick a simple and compact idea and find creative ways to elevate it to the next level.

Scope is one of the most difficult aspects of design to manage, and it is way better to keep it simple and build things up instead of having to pair stuff down at the last minute (ask us how we know…).

So, all that is to say, we appreciate simple designs, reuse of space, and finding clever ways to reuse what is already in the game.

[h2]Prizes:[/h2]



[h3]1st Prize:[/h3]

• RTX 3070 TI
  
• $100 Steam Gift Card (USD)
  
• Custom Black Mesa Mouse Pad
  
• Black Mesa Display Box
  

[h3]2nd Prize:[/h3]

• GTX 1660 Super
  
• $100 Steam Gift Card (USD)
  
• Custom Black Mesa Mouse Pad
  
• Black Mesa Display Box
  

[h3]3rd Prize:[/h3]

• Corsair Keyboard
  
• $50 Steam Gift Card (USD)
  
• Custom Black Mesa Mouse Pad
  
• Black Mesa Display Box
  

[h3]Important Links and Information:[/h3]

1. Submission form
2. Help/questions - LambdaBuilds section of LambdaGeneration Discord
3. Share WIPs/progress on our platform using #LambdaBuilds tag
4. Download final build/results on the ModDB page

Check out the LambdaBuilds infographic for complete rules, judges, and details.

Attention to all science personnel!

Today marks 10 years since Black Mesa was released as the definitive way to revisit Half-Life on the Source engine! We’re so proud of how far we’ve come since then, and are grateful for the tremendous support from our community over the past decade. Black Mesa wouldn’t be where it is today if it wasn’t for all of you.

To celebrate this huge milestone, our friends at LambdaGeneration have released the Black Mesa sub-community on their website, which will act as the official fan page for all Black Mesa personnel! If you haven’t joined yet, please head here and sign up today!

Furthermore, we are teaming with LambdaGeneration to hold a 10 year anniversary Gleam giveaway. We’re giving away 3 sets of $50 Steam Physical Gift cards to the top 3 winners. To enter the giveaway, follow this link. Complete as many tasks as possible to earn more chances to win! The giveaway runs until September, 20th. Winners will be announced shortly after.

Thank you for a great 10 years, scientists,

The Crowbar Collective Team