Half-Life: A Place in the West News

Hi all,

Chapter 4 was intended to be released today, and we’re unfortunately having to push that back to another day (to be determined) because of some poor planning on our part. Because of how we’ve handled delays in the past, I want to get out in front of this one and explain a bit about the process, and what we’ll be doing to fix it going forward.

As you may or may not know, any time a new Store page is created (even for DLC), it goes through Valve for approval (as do pricing proposals). With what we believe to be the combination of Steam continuing to grow at a rapid pace, and the approaching holidays, our new store page hasn’t yet been approved. Ordinarily this process does not take long, and we were ill-prepared for a delay with it.

We typically leave a few weeks gap between finishing the latest chapter and releasing it. This allows us to do several read-throughs of the issue for last minute changes, finish the Steam images, wrap up the store page, ensure that the app is set up to include the new chapter / is stable, and (ideally), have the translations at least for Russian already started.

In this case, we committed to a date early (trying to coincide with the Half-Life / Half-Life 2 anniversaries), and were very late with making last minute changes. Our timetable as a whole suffered for it and we were later than we should have been getting the Store page to Valve. Going forward, our plan will be to prioritise the assets for the store page assets and move to get that through approval before we announce any kind of date.

While we wait for that approval, we’ll be shipping an update to the app today that gives a short preview for Chapter 4, and we will keep you updated on a new release date as soon as the new page is approved. Our sincere apologies for dropping the ball on this, but trust us, it’ll be worth the few extra days wait!

Hey all!

Today marks the one year anniversary of our initial release on Steam!

To celebrate it, we’ve released a brand new interlude - formerly known as “shorts” - for free! Titled Nal Sidian, this five-page story delves into the vortigaunt Dreyfus’ past, and explores his relationship to the nefarious Combine. Our plan is to release a free interlude between every chapter going forward. Now integrated into the app’s chapter selection menu, these pieces are very much fundamental to the complete story.



Speaking of the app, this update also introduces some much needed tweaks and updates! We now have improved language support, and we’ve released Chapter 1 and the first interlude (The Charnel House) for the new languages as well! You can now read through the first section of the comic in Czech, German, Spanish, and Turkish! We will be bringing these languages to Chapters 2, 3, and Nal Sidian in the coming months, as well as continuing to add more languages to our selection. Brazilian Portuguese is next and should be out within a few weeks, with more to come!



The translations took us a bit longer to get out the door than we’d have liked, largely because we no longer had the original files for Chapter 1 and had to reletter it, as well as the looming size of Chapter 2. Our original plan was not to release the language updates incrementally, but we feel it’s important for our superb team of volunteer translators to see their work on the page! We’ll be forging ahead with the monster that is Chapter 2, and working towards a point where we’re releasing new chapters simultaneously (or at least nearly simultaneously) across all of our supported languages.

The app also now includes integration with our soundtrack, so that you can easily listen to Chris’s ambient tunes while reading. We have a few other features in the pipeline (including controller support) and there will be more updates to come on the app soon as well!



We’re well over halfway through production on Chapter 4: A Spy in the House of Long, and we could not be more excited about how it’s coming together. Taking place directly after the Pit debacle, 4 sees Sejal Rajani’s Opposition, Governor Moore and Major-General Long come head-to-head in a dramatic confrontation on the edge of the city, whilst shedding new light on the Citadel and the mysterious being wrapped around it.

We have always suffered from being slow storytellers, and we’ve been very aware of that over the last several months. With that in mind, Chapter 4 really digs deep into New Franklin and applies pressure to the different groups competing for power.

It’s visually stunning, too. The team - which brings back Kristian, Ivan, Ester and Javier - are operating at the top of their game, and between them have created a gorgeous, moody, almost noir-like atmosphere for what’s shaping up to be the best chapter yet. We’re super excited about it, and can’t wait to share it with you all.





The first draft of Chapter 5 is complete, and we’re hoping to push that into production before the end of the year, for an early Spring release. 5 closes the arcs established in Chapter 3, and kicks off a new trajectory for Chapters 6 and 7 in (we think) spectacular fashion! Key word: “Masquerade”. And of course, you can expect a third interlude between Chapters 4 and 5.

As many of you no doubt already know, Marc Laidlaw released a veiled synopsis for Half-Life 2: Episode 3 last month. Ross wrote about it in a blog post titled "Doctor Breen is Dead". It was oddly cathartic. Keep an eye out for more blog posts in the future.

You might also have noticed that Chapters 2 and 3, as well as the soundtrack, are now on sale! In light of the soundtrack integration, now might be a really good time to pick that up if you haven’t already.

For now, though, please enjoy Nal Sidian and let us know what you think of both it and the app updates. And of course please let us know of any errors you might come across, there are a lot of changes that took place in our app!

Until next time!

Hey everyone!

Today, we’re very pleased to announce the release of the Russian translation of Chapter 3: The Pit, provided courtesy of the very talented Vsevolod Stepanov and Pavel Lapinsky (translation and lettering, respectively)!

Whilst we've been a little slow on the translation front, we are dedicated to integrating the comic with as many languages as possible, time and means permitting! For the time being, to our Russian readers, we hope you enjoy this next installment of Half-Life: A Place in the West! We've started doing lettering for additional languages and will have those available soon.

So, where are we at in terms of production? We'll be doing an anniversary celebration for the 30th of September that will include the next "Interlude" (previously described as "shorts") along with a series of application updates. The interlude is called "Nal Sidian" and will explore a piece of the vortigaunt Dreyfus' backstory.

Chapter 4: "A Spy in the House of Long" went into production a couple weeks ago, and is making great progress! After the debacle in The Pit, tensions within New Franklin reach boiling point, culminating in a confrontation between the Opposition and the Governor! We’re very proud of the script and can't wait to share it with you all. The story's starting to really move now (finally…!)

Hi everyone!

Chapter 3 of the fan-made comic Half-Life: A Place in the West is now available! Titled “The Pit”, this chapter comes in at 30 pages. The Pit picks up where Chapter 2 left off: Leyla Poirier and Albert Kempinski go their separate ways after an intense dispute, but are both drawn to a gladiatorial arena in New Franklin. Known as “Kal’s Pit”, this seedy arena puts on a show of blood sport against captured aliens from beyond the city’s walls. But when an accident throws everyone into danger, an unlikely hero emerges… And back at City Hall, Major-General Long makes a discovery that will change New Franklin forever.

We’ve made some changes in our team with this issue - Ivan, Ester, and Javier have continued on from Chapter 2 in the roles of Inker, Colourist, and Letterer, respectively, but our previous penciler, Heath, has had to step down due to family commitments - we will miss him, and are incredibly grateful for the wonderful work he did on Chapters 1 and 2. In his place, we’ve brought on Kristian Rossi, who has worked on such comics as Trespasser, The Temporal, and Moonshine. Kristian brings his own style, and we think you’ll love the new direction. As always, let us know your thoughts!



Sometime Soon (tm) we’ll be doing another application update. This will come before the release of Chapter 4, and will contain another (free!) short interlude between chapters, as well as application improvements including controller support, integration with our soundtrack, and possibly the fabled addition of opting into a two-page layout. This will also include the behind the scenes commentary video for Chapter 2, which I am still cutting together.

We also should be shipping the first batch of our additional translations at that time! As well as the translation of Chapter 3 into Russian, which is unfortunately not yet ready for release today. (Obviously if that’s ready before the release, we’ll do our best to get it out ahead of time!)

We’re also working hard on Chapter 4, which will be going into production the first week of August, and an intended release this autumn. More coming on that soon.



To plug some other things, Ross and I have been writing Blog posts on the new A Place in the West website, on topics from artistic style, comics on Steam, and why we decided to use the Half-Life IP. You can check those out at http://a-place-in-the-west.ghost.io/. Our website also contains a newsletter signup if you want more frequent updates that we generally post here on Steam. The newsletter comes out once a month and contains some additional behind-the-scenes looks and early teases.

Ross and I were also interviewed for the Ghost City Comics podcast which should be released early next week. Be sure to check them out! Their podcast is very informative and, if you are (or want to be) a comic creator, they are doing a competition which can get you feedback, reviews, and even a cash prize.

As ever, we thank you for continued interest and support of the comic, and hope you’re looking forward to sticking with us through the Pit and beyond!