I have read through countless works from both ends of the spectrum – from mythology to science, Lovecraft to Shulgin. I am increasingly certain that these phenomena lie somewhere in a realm as yet unaccounted for: the strange place where fact and fiction meet, and a new reality comes into fruition.
Download Nestlings from ModDB
(Half-Life 2: Episode 2 required)
Nestlings is a short experiment in story and mood. It emerges from a task I set myself: to write, design and build a single-player mod in just three days.
It is not a perfect project, by any means. If it weren't for the self-imposed time limit, there are things I'd change. Maybe I will, someday.
A lengthy developer commentary, in which I talk about some of the design and narrative decisions I took for the mod, can be found here. Beware: spoilers lurk within.
Feedback is, of course, more than welcome.
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Designed, written and built by Lewis Denby.
Music by Kevin McLeod, used under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
www.lewisdenby.com
www.incompetech.com
Articles
It's a few months now since I made Nestlings in three days. There's been less press coverage than there was with the first version of Post Script Ep 1 (by the way: exciting news on that coming soon...), which could be due to its right-before-Christmas release, or maybe its short length, or maybe because I just threw it online with zero fanfare.
Either way, I've been generally pleased with the response, and most people's criticisms have been exactly what I expected. There have been a couple of "it's too short" comments, which I can't really get behind - I'm really interested in short-form gaming and how it works. Other than that, though, I basically agree. There are a few bugs and glitches. The "picking up notes" thing is tired and illogical. The ending... well, that's a funny one. The ending seems to have been loved and hated pretty equally. For the record, I don't like the very end - it's too abrupt and, on my new PC, for some reason doesn't even fade out. But the bit before it I was pleased with. I'm glad to see a few people saying the same.
One thing I've been delighted with is people's response to the atmosphere. I had no idea I'd managed to create something that so many people have found truly frightening. I wasn't going for fear, really. I was going for a sort of morbid fascination, which by the end had transitioned properly into classical tragedy. But so many people have talked about feeling frightened as they walked around the house. That I've managed to evoke such a reaction (with the help of Kevin McLeod's fantastic Creative Commons-licensed music, it has to be said) is just wonderful.
I've only found a couple of reviews so far. Did you like Nestlings? Did you hate it? Do you write for a PC gaming website or similar? Review it! Go on! Anyway, the two I've found are both interesting. One because, well, it's on a website I'm editor of. Yeah. For the record though, the reviewer - Fraser McMillan - wrote it off his own back and I had no input whatsoever. So I'm delighted when he says of Nestlings: "Short-form games can exploit certain elements of design in unforeseen ways, and the very fact of Nestlings’ truncated length allows it to be one of the most consistently psychologically intense and potent gaming experiences I can think of. It’s utterly captivating from beginning to end."
The other is a short write-up from Danish website Half-Life Portal, which is more mixed. They've settled on a score of 65% (how you can put a 1-100 score on something which lasts 5 minutes is totally beyond me), claiming players shouldn't expect too much, but that it is still "a very atmospheric pure-story-mod... very well done from an artistic point of view."
Anyway, further to all this, PC Gamer UK got in touch with me a few weeks back and asked if they could put Nestlings on their cover disc. Well, of course they could! So if you're in good old Blighty and picking up a copy of this month's Gamer, released today, you'll find Nestlings on the attached DVD.
Recommend Nestlings to a friend! Recommend it to a reviewer! And keep checking the Internet for - fingers crossed - a bloody exciting announcement about what I'm doing next. Well, I'm excited, anyway...
Nestlings released
News 1 commentA short experiment in story and mood. The result of a task I set myself: to design, write and build a single-player mod in just three days.
Episode 63
Feature 10 commentsWilliam is alone this week because the recording was botched. He explains the situation and then goes through the week's news alone, it lasts for about...
Files
Nestlings
Full Version 3 commentsA short experiment in story and mood, built for Half-Life 2: Episode 2.
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Very good. However I did not fully understand what was going on. And sometimes I found it difficult to read the hand writing.
But still interesting none the less.
Just gave this a whack, and really enjoyed it, perhaps get voice overs for the letters, that would be good, short and sweet with great atmosphere!
nice one mate!
i really enjoyed this. sooo much better than post-script :P.
The story was interesting, well, it kept me interested and i thought it was pretty well thought out.
The notes were great! so much better than just text popping up on the screen. The atmosphere you created was great, there were points when i actually thought twice when going through a door even though there was no danger throughout the whole mod :P
My only real critisism is that the notes were a bit hard to read, due to the hand writing.
MAKE ANOTHER ONE!
So after playing Post Script AND Nestlings, I can definitely say that Nestlings was the better of the two.
The environment, while there wasn't a lot of it, was detailed and designed well. I preferred the writing in Nestlings over the writing in Post Script (although the writing wasn't bad in Post Script either), and the atmosphere created in Nestlings had me terrified, and it really had that lonely and abandoned feel. Every time I rounded a corner I was expecting Nestlings to attack me! Two things I did not like about this mod was the pacing and the ending. The writing was good stuff, but I was picking up these little notes every 15 seconds or so. In the future (because I do hope you keep making mods, I've liked both of them!), it would be nice if there was more exploration time, where you let the atmosphere and level design speak for you, instead of words. Also (POTENTIAL SPOILER AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH LOOK AWAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY) I thought that the ending was a bit weak. Your actual encounter with the Nestlings was sort of boring, to be honest. This was supposed to be a grand finale. Make it big, terrifying!
That's just my opinion anyways, so take it or leave it, just sayin'. Good stuff!
Gorgeous piece of work although I wish it were longer. I have to say the writing was the top notchiest I've seen in a mod as well!
I really enjoyed it :D
It's too bad that I won't be able to know what the Nestlings are :(
I never actually noticed that this was here, so I'm downloading and playing it now. Better late than never, right?
I was a huge fan of Post Script, so I'm sure I'll love this too. Will give some feedback when I'm done.
Alright. Finished it now. Decided that I'm never playing any more of your mods ever again because you keep leaving me on cliffhangers and it's making me sad :p
Very fun though, really liked the story you started. Hope you'll finish it.
Murdouken: Really interested that you found it to be a cliffhanger. Nestlings was written as an entirely self-contained story. Post Script is the ongoing one, and will absolutely be returned to.
I wonder if something in your own interpretation of the vaguities of the narrative led to you feeling this way. The way I wrote it, there are obviously things left hanging - what /are/ the nestlings, for example? Are they real or hallucinatory? Are they metaphorical, or do they really manifest as an outward realisation of inner turmoil? Why do they only seem to appear in this location? - but the focal point of the story is the tale of the scientist and Annabelle. And that one is totally tied up - in my mind at least. What they did, and what happened to them, is pretty much solidified by that final scene.
Thanks for playing!
Only found out about this mod today and I have to say I quite liked it. It was pretty well made, had an interesting plot and concluded quite nicely. Well done!