Jonathan Tiu

Game Mod Stuff (from 2007-2008)

(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.

Contents of this page:

Subvertus (2007-2008)

subvertus wallpaper by something
Subvertus wallpaper by "something"
Subvertus (moddb link) was Half Life 2 mod that was in development from 2006-2008. It was a spin off of the game’s main storyline involving a Combine Climate Controller, a group of rebels, and a whole lot of snow.  The team involved everyone from hobbyists to industry pros. A couple of concept artists joined in 2007–including me, an aspiring game artist, and another fellow, Gilles, who was a professional concept artist whose skills and experience blew mine out of the water. My initial offerings were laughably bad, but I stuck to it and definitely improved, especially with the architectural stuff. I’ll share some of the decent stuff below. The team decided to halt work on the mod in 2008, despite having created a solid amount of content for the 1st and 3rd chapters.

subvertus city concepts
Environment concepts for Subvertus Chapter 3 (ruined city)
subvertus storyboards
Storyboard sample pages – conclusion of Chapter 3
subvertus character art
Character and enemy art
subvertus bunker art
Level concepts for Chapter 1 (Bunker)

Noir (2007-2008)

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:

noir slums
Noir Slums
noir ravager
Noir Ravager Creature

Misc

Here's an environmental theater concept I did for a gangster MMO that got unfortunately got discontinued in development.

goonworld theater concept
Goonworld theater concept

-Jon