Me and RedD have finally gotten into a regular working schedule on Redef, and we’ve made some progress. Redef is a Source engine mod for Valve’s Half-Life 2 that intends to address all the flaws of conventional First-Person Shooter design, big and small, and introduce a healthy dose of realism while we’re at it. The project is quite ambitious and our list of desired features is quite extensive. Of course, neither me nor RedD wish this to turn into vaporware so we’ll be releasing versions of the game at significant milestones in the development to keep things fresh and interesting for our players and still approach the finished product we’re really looking for.

A quick list of the features in the works for the alpha version:

  • Realistic bullet simulation, complete with bullet speed, drop, air drag, penetration, ricochet, and wind.
  • Wound simulation, using a model based on real-world bullet wounds including vitals, cavitation, bleeding, and hydrostatic shock.
  • Entirely new control scheme. See the video for a demonstration of reloading.

I’ve already implemented 80% of the bullet simulation and (if you’ll excuse the lack of modesty) it’s looking quite impressive. Work on the wound simulation is underway and we’ve been investigating several approaches to accomplishing that without too much complication.