(Written sometime in 2013)
The game modding community is a pretty fun group. You have a group of people who are simply passionate about playing and making video games. I got into modding seriously in middle school, when Quake 1 came out in the mid nineties. The first mod I downloaded was a simple but hilarious mod that changed all the rocket launcher rockets into exploding dogs. I was instantly intrigued by the syntax of QuakeC. I got hooked with seeing what other users programmed, and experimenting with how I could push the game engine with my own modifications (for instance, in one mod I implemented a magic spellcasting system based on Final Fantasy VI).
The mod scene has evolved a lot since those goofy days, and now you have tons of professional level mods like Black Mesa Source out there. Unfortunately, for every mod that sees the light of day, there's dozens that don't quite make it. In addition to several smaller game projects, I contributed to two unreleased mod teams, doing concept art, storyboards and creature design. Some of the art is presented below. In the end, the experience and teamwork was great and I met a lot of cool artists and programmers.
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I worked briefly on another Half-Life 2 modification around the same time that I worked on Subvertus. It was a horror themed mod called "Noir: Chronicles of the Forgotten". This project was abrupted fairly early, but not before it had a pretty nice theme song composed for it. Here's a creature concept and environment concept that I made for Noir:
Here's an environmental theater concept I did for a gangster MMO that got unfortunately got discontinued in development.
-Jon