Storytime · 4:13pm Mar 15th, 2019

I recently hit 10 followers. So I guess I'll celebrate by telling you about myself and why I started writing in the first place, and what has influenced me over the years.

Part One: The Half-Life series:

I think I was about 8/9 years old. I was in primary school, and my very best friend at the time (who stayed so for the following ten years) introduced me to the Half-Life game series. I remember going to his house one day, and we took turns playing the game Counter-Strike (I was-and still am- very bad at the game. I remember not being too fond of it at the time, mainly because it didn't have a story and no real ranks system at the time, meaning that I didn't really see the point of the game. So, my friend suggested "Well why don't we write one for it?"
And off we went, making up scenarios of heroic bomb-defusals, counter-terrorism and hostage rescues. Basically we started roleplaying in the school's playground, pretending to be in the SAS, shooting imaginary guns at imaginary hostiles.

And one day, my friend brought me to his house, and instead of playing Counter-Strike: Source, he booted up Gary's Mod, the famous sandbox game based on a Half-Life 2 mod. Now at that point, I didn't know anything about the Half-Life 2 universe, but all the same, this all intrigued me. And as he showed me the ropes of the game, the tools and everything, I was feeling more and more impressed.

At that time, I asked my friend "you can actually make games with this?" So he answered that the tool was designed more to create scenes with characters and props, but I was happy nonetheless. So, he told me about the plot of Half-Life and Half-Life 2, and he added, at some point, that "It's a shame that the Combine (the ingame enemies) are the enemy. They're so well designed!"

I agreed, and from there we started drawing up our plans for a spin-off, Alternate Universe version of Half-Life, that we simply named "Half Past", in which the Combine were the good guys. I mean, it was bad, and we know that now, but we did spend a lot of time designing scenes and writing stuff. That was my first venture into writing.

A few years after that, I picked up the Orange Box for my Xbox 360 (I didn't really have a PC), and played Half-Life 2 for the first time, after having seen gameplay of it several times before. Ever since that day, I've been a massive fanboy of the Half-Life universe, and maybe I'll make a separate blogpost about why that's the case.

Part Two: the Halo series:

Halo was, and still is, one of my favourite game series ever. And, it was the first game that made me realise that video games can be more than just games, and can be a great way to tell a story. Even though it was something that I had seen with Half-Life, Halo made me realise it even more, if that makes sense. You see, then as well as today, I still regard Halo: Reach to be the best, most well-crafted game in the Halo Series, and one of the best games ever made as a whole. This part is not as long as the first one, mainly because how I came to discover it is a pretty standard story: bought an Xbox, played Halo, and that was that.

Final part: diverse books and games.

So, here's a non-exhaustive list of games and books that have influenced me over the years:
The Harry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling.
Jam, by Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw
L'ami Retrouvé, by Fred Uhlman
L'Etranger, by Albert Camus
Bravo-Two-Zero and Silencer, by Andy McNab
Boys of Brazil, by Ira Levin.

The Metal Gear games
Dishonored
The Elder Scrolls series, specifically Oblivion and Skyrim
The Fallout series, espercially Fallout New Vegas

Report Silver-Spirits-and-Ales · 256 views · #10 followers #Story #Inspiration #Computer Games #VideoGame #Half-Life #Halo

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Antiquarian

Antiquarian #1 · Mar 15th, 2019 · · ·

cdn.pressstart.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Halo-Reach.jpg

Silver-Spirits-and-Ales

Silver-Spirits-and-Ales #2 · Mar 15th, 2019 · · ·

5028303
Ah, the memories.

NOBLE Five is best NOBLE. Change my mind

Antiquarian

Antiquarian #3 · Mar 15th, 2019 · · ·

5028312
*Ben Shapiro voice*

Okay, folks, here's the thing, objectively Noble 5 is the best Noble, it's been proven a dozen times over, and the idea, and the idea, and the idea that anyone would suggest otherwise is just ridiculous, okay folks? Next question please.

Silver-Spirits-and-Ales