Hello everyone!
Thank you for coming here!
I'm CementStairs - an active Source 2 Developer and a huge Alyx Mapping enthusiaist.

Ever since the modding tools for Half-Life: Alyx came out I’ve been creating content on Source 2. Over the past two years I have finished many projects of different sizes and most importantly genres.

I love creating maps for competitions with themes, that force me to think in a different way than I normally would and with deadlines that give me motivation not to procrastinate and get the job done in time.

I try to create something new and unique with every map I make, rather than focusing only on the classic gameplay of HL:A.
The reason for it being simple - I don't like the core gameplay of Alyx.



Half-Life 2 is probably my favourite game ever made, I must have played it at least hundred times over the years and I still replay it often throughout each year. What I always loved about HL2 was the way the gameplay was dynamic, mainly thanks to the physics system. You could replay the game many times, but each time it is different thanks to the flexible core gameplay, even though it is a linear game. And I cannot count the amount of different gameplay novelties thrown at the player almost every minute, in form of a new mechanic, interesting level design, enemy, weapon, twists of familiar mechanics,...

This was sadly not present in Half-Life: Alyx, where you will approach each situation almost in the same way and you don't have much space to use your surroundings to your advantage, like in HL2. The progression through the campaign feels like just set of big setpieces, with filler between them, but not like that constantly engaging, changing and original world of HL2, where even if put into empty gray box with couple of enemies and props it would have resulted in a fun time, because of the core mechanics. I wish Alyx was closer to BONEWORKS, where you can really push the VR technology to it's limits and get a dynamic experience I always wanted from a VR game.


So, that's why I try to make my maps to take advantage of VR more with all sorts of twists to the gameplay - spaceships, pilotable mech, drivable cars, drivable ships, controllable artillery, crossbows with fluorescent bolts, melee weapons, immersive(but also accordingly unpleasant) depictions of real actions(escaping prison through dug holes, being burried alive, boxing, falling from a building, digging a tunnel, etc.), new weapons like electric whips/shields/shields with energy swords/portable disks emitting shield barriers/prototype energy weaponary/miniguns/pump shotguns...

Generally different genres and settings - big battles with allied NPCs, ResidentEvil-like survival horror, Open-world scavenging in postapocalyptic desert, arcade-y space combat, Outpost defences unlike scenes from StarShip troopers, travelling through time and space Stargate/DW/Star Trek style, Minigames, real-life buildings and architecture, stealth missions, Ship battles, atmospheric environments and more.


So here is where, dear player, comes your part.

If anything I just described sounded even remotly interesting to you, please, try to give my maps a shot.

The best thing for a developer is to see their work be used/played and then getting feedback from the players.

The Alyx modding community is still fairly small and we don't get to see many players these days talk about or take part in the modding community, by playing.

Personal recommendation for first maps to start with would be Operator, Final Frontier, Molten Steel, "Half-Life: Alyx", Museum of Source 2, On a Run, Invasion, Mine, House, Red Door and then the rest.

So all I have to say is to try it out and...