Comment by wincy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wincy | Hacker News Reader

When I was 13-14 there was a brief period where I was making levels for Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2. I had a “clan” encouraging me to make us our own level and it was simple enough that at 13 I could listen to some Disturbed on my headphone while learning how to use the tooling and follow tutorials to make stuff and get things up and running. It had a basic scripting language (cog files) that you’d use to make elevators move and things like that. You’d attach these cog files to in game objects and it was a very good intro to games and level design. I think that was definitely my foot in the door for thinking like a coder.

Unfortunately Unreal Tournament became extremely popular right after this and thirteen year old me couldn’t wrap his head around C++, and didn’t have anyone to help me, so my learning journey ended for about 12 years or so until I learned to code in my mid 20s. I’ve still never picked up video game design again, despite consuming them a decent amount. Stuff just got too complicated.

Battle.net also used to be great for learning your way around computers. Designed and released my first "game" via Starcraft's Map Editor, first "server" was a Battle.net chat bot hosted in my closet... First peek into how complex software works was map hacking Diablo 2... etc etc.

I learned a ton from Battle.net.

I have such fond memories of that game, specifically the single player. It was the first time I ever felt truly engrossed by a game storyline. I even loved the FMVs which felt like the perfect blend of CG and live action back then - I later learned that the saber duels were the first captured on film since Return of the Jedi.

Such a shame that it was passed up for porting to other platforms. Would love to play it on my Switch like I can the followup.

I was also fairly obsessed with modding this game, which is strange because I'm not really a massive Star Wars fan.

The cog language (more or less C syntax) was far more powerful than the base game really made use of. I think the grappling hook mods really got me started though, the engine wasn't super modern but few games really sold the vertigo of wide open cliffs and pits like this one did. I like tinkering with it far more than I did playing it. Cog seemed almost bolted on and the base cogs really only were sort of complicated for weapon handling and scripted level events. But I remember making laser trip mines (and the ability to shoot the mines with a blaster), a crude rope for the grappling hook, reloading weapons, etc. By the time I moved on I was implementing A* pathfinding for a replacement AI written in cog. I'd switched to Mysteries of the Sith just to get access to more cog verbs.

Dark Forces 2, cog files! I haven't thought of any of this in years!

We're very similar, it was my introduction to game editing - I was never a fan of DOOM, Quake or Unreal/Tournament. But, I played around so much with JKEdit, and even continued with Jedi Outcast. It was by far the most fun I had with modding a game until Morrowind came out years later.

I really wish that modern games were as accessible, at least at a surface level - modding has fallen to the sidelines in recent years - I can't even think of the last game that came with an editor outside of a Bethesda game.

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