In addition to a strategy guide for Half-Life 2 and a planned mod making book, Prima Games will also release a book that details the making of Valve Software's long awaited first person shooter sequel. Not only will the book chronicle the making of the game itself but the making of book will also deal with the history of Valve Software itself and its previous games and mods (Half-Life, Counter-Strikem etc) and will be presented in hardback rather than the typical trade paperback format that strategy guides are printed. HomeLAN got a chance to chat with the book's author David Hodgson to find out more about the making of Half-Life 2 book which as he reveals in the interview will be released before the game itself ships to stores.

HomeLAN - First, can you give us your background prior to the release of the Making of Half-Life 2 book?

David Hodgson - Certainly. I'm an ex-Brit who moved to the US in 1996 to work on GameFan magazine, for my sins. Prior to that, I was based in London, England. After GameFan, I helped form the short-lived Gamers' Republic (where incidentally, I first played a demo version of Half-Life called "Squad2", which was an AI simulation), then moved to San Francisco, helped form incite Video Gaming, moved to Gamers.com, and when that folded too, I decided that I'd had enough of video game publishing failures, and went freelance in 2000, writing strategy guides for Prima. I've authored around 40 books.

HomeLAN - How did you get the gig to write the book?

David Hodgson - Prima approached me around the time I worked on the Knights of the Old Republic strategy guide, and wanted me to handle writing duties for Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar, as well as the strategy guide, which I'm finishing up right now. I also do features and previews for various magazines, and this experience helped them pin the project down to me. I was extremely excited at the prospect to say the least, and I've had previous experience at this interviewing lark. Nothing quite as gargantuan, however, had been attempted before.

HomeLAN - How much access did Valve Software give you to write the book?

David Hodgson - All the access I wished. Really, this book couldn't have been possible without the help and support of Valve. It began with a meeting where Doug Lombardi, myself, and my Prima boss had all these ideas that were tossed about. Doug had some really cool plans for how a "coffee table" style book would work, and we ran with the plan of making a history of Valve, plus an art book, and merging them together into a tome around the size of a phone directory, but with a hardback cover and glossy paper.

After the meeting, which occurred last September, I began a series of interviews with all the members of the team. This included Marc, Gabe, Ken, Bill Van Buren, John Guthrie... basically all the members of the different Cabals. We had interviews that lasted around a couple of hours for each team member (although some were clumped together, such as the TFC team), and then we followed up with emails. I then visited Valve on five more occasions between September and July 2004 to speak with more members of the team, tidy up loose ends, and work with Jess Cliffe on where the stacks and stacks of art were going to be placed in the book. At last count, there's around 1000 images in there.

Obviously, we had to halt production on the book in October due to the theft, but once that was sorted out, I was able to fit around the team's schedule and ask anyone anything I wished. This is an officially licensed book, so Valve helped me every step of the way.

HomeLAN - While there are a lot of strategy guides for games, there are only a few "making of" books about games. What type of writing approach did you take when writing the book?

David Hodgson - I wanted this to be a more conversational piece, with Valve members explaining their games in their own words. The book charts the inception of Valve, including the early days, then through the development of Half-Life, the scrapping and retooling of the game, all the expansion packs, and finally, the complete process of working through the development of Half-Life 2. I attempted to cram every single piece of important art and information I could. It's a development diary essentially, but magnified and extrapolated into a lavish behind-the-scenes spectacular (at least, that's what the Sales department tells me). Simply put, I wanted to help create a weighty tome that a fan of Valve and the FPS genre couldn't put down. Or pick up without receiving a hernia.

HomeLAN - What are some of the more surprising or interesting things you learned about game development while writing and researching the book?

David Hodgson - Well, without giving much of the content away, there were dozens of interesting anecdotes and information pieces that no one's read about before. For example, one of the company's original names was Rhinoscar (I even got Gabe to draw me the logo!). Gabe talks about Prospero, there's an extremely amusing story about Ted Bachman's interview with Gabe and the inception for some of the freakier looking critters in the game. How Gordon's name came about. Who influenced Hal Robins' during his vocal recordings for Dr. Kleiner. Then there's the photography models for G. Man and Alyx; they're are really cool to see! The Source code theft is talked about candidly. The sheer insanity of the modeling that went on in City 17 shows how meticulous Valve are. Some of the entities that got cut from HL2... how development stalled for months when the physics engine was finished and everyone started building crazy contraptions... I mean, there's loads of surprising elements I wrote about during the development of Valve's games -- that's just a smattering!

HomeLAN - Half-Life 2 took quite a long time to develop and release. Is that long development time dealt with in the book?

David Hodgson - Yes, in fact Doug talks about the "September 30th" nightmare from last year, and Gabe (plus others) chat about the reasons why the game took so long to complete. Gabe wanted to make sure the successes AND the failures in the development are talked about and explained. That's one of the reasons why I think fans who are more critical of Valve's release schedule may be interested in this book. Valve wanted to make sure the problems and successes were discussed.

HomeLAN - Besides the actual coverage of the making of Half-Life 2 will there be any kind of pre-production artwork and screenshots from the game itself?

David Hodgson - Hoo, boy! That's the entire premise of the book! I just did a quick check through of the art contained in the book, and we're at just under 1000 separate art pieces. Around half of those are HL2-related (although there's pre-production stuff for Counter-Strike, HL, and all the expansions). Myself and Jess Cliffe went through all the available art for HL2, and selected all of the best bits. That means early sketches, monsters that didn't make it, a whole section just on Strider head designs... and over four hundred more art pieces that I can't currently talk about! All of this is full-color, and large-sized. The books around 390 pages currently. I've managed to acquire all the important pre-production sketches, artwork, and screenshots and placed them in the book. There's literally NOTHING I left out, with the exception of a few E3 screenshots we didn't have room for. Bottom line: If Valve had it in their art repository, and they gave it to me to use, it's in there.

HomeLAN - Overall are you and Valve pleased with your work in the book?

David Hodgson - I can't speak for Valve, although I was told the pre-production version of the book went down really well with the team, but I'm happy with how the book turned out. It was a long undertaking, and I tried to cram every single piece of interesting history I could so it can be referenced for years to come. I don't usually blow my own trumpet though; but everything I wanted to include, with the exceptional of some of the mod interviews I did a while back (which were cut for space) made it in, which was my goal.

HomeLAN - We have heard that the actual design and production of the book is something special. Can you be more specific?

David Hodgson - Well, one of Valve's designers came up with the template for the pages. Each spread is around 70 percent art (usually with captions), 30 percent text. After a Foreward written by Gabe, the book is split into three main "Parts"; the first is HL, the second are the expansion packs, CS, DOD, Mods, etc, and the third is HL2 (although the HL2 section is almost half the book). Each "Part" is further divided into chapters, each with a full-color opener. The book is printed on glossy paper, and I believe it's going to be hard-backed, with a paper wrap-around. The dimensions are around the size of a phone book. The book itself is over an inch thick! This thing's heavy, and I believe there's only a limited print run.

HomeLAN - Are the strategy guide and mod making books still going to be published as well?

David Hodgson - Yes, I've just finished up the strategy guide (I'm labeling maps currently!), and that will release with the game. The Raising the Bar book, however, is something Prima hopes to release 14-30 days PRIOR to the game shipping. I'd urge fans to watch where they open the book, as there's a lot of HL2 spoilers in there! Regarding the Mod book, we're waiting on that until a few months after the release of HL2, so there's time for Valve to help out and the community can get to grips with their mods.

HomeLAN - Finally is there anything else you wish to say about the making of Half-Life 2 book?

David Hodgson - Well, the book wouldn't have been possible without the help and support of Valve and Prima. Jess Cliffe and myself have been tweaking this for a couple of months now, and we're hoping to have it done within a couple of weeks. I'd also like to say that we're hoping the HL2 community likes the finished product, and that it galvanizes other developers into wanting to create similar books, so there's more than simply a game and a guide available for major software releases in the future.

Thanks for the opportunity to speak with you about this project, and I hope everyone enjoys it.

Links