Multiplayer Maps and Mods

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Asylum Screenshots

Asylum Game Mod

In 2001 myself and some friends from work began working on a game mod called Asylum. As designer and project manager I oversaw the development of the game for 18 months. We began the mod for Half-Life and then switched over to Quake 3 as the Quake 3 source code became more available.

Asylum was a multiplayer mod set in the Victorian era and based around the gothic 'cult of death' prevalent at the time.


The game had two opposing teams, one side based on policmen and soldiers and the other side based on Victorian thugs like Billy Sykes from Oliver Twist.


The game was called 'Capture the Corpse' and was based on grave robbing.


The two teams fought each other to pick up a newly buried corpse from a graveyard in the centre of the map and bring it back to their home base.


Face of Character from Asylum

The police brought the body back to a morgue to earn money and the thugs took the body to a hospital or an abattoir to earn money.


The money earned could then be spent on weapons at the beginning of each round in the same style as Counter-Strike.


An important part of the game was the balancing of the teams within the game. When a player carried the corpse he was essentially out of action as that was all he could do; the player carrying the corpse was also slowed down. This meant that the team that had possession of the corpse was simultaneously disadvantaged by having one fewer players able to protect its movement. The corpse could alternatively be carried faster but only by two team members using a stretcher. Again this paper, scissors, stone gameplay meant that the team with the advantage of moving the corpse quickly had the disadvantage of having two fewer team members able to defend and fight for the corpse itself.


The gameplay was based around inducing as much co-operation, communication and co-ordination between the team members as possible. The idea was to focus both teams onto one point, the position of the corpse, and then to take turns attacking and defending that single mobile object as possession of the corpse switched between teams.


The weapons were based on First World War weapons and like Counter-Strike were mainly limited to machine guns, shotguns and sniper rifles though other weapons were due to be tested and added during development.


The use of grenades was very innovative as they could be used in many situations. They had spikes on them and could be thrown onto different objects and would behave in different ways. The grenades were triggered by motion so could be used in many creative ways. They could be thrown as a standard grenade or they could be thrown on the floor to act as a land mine which would go off when someone passed. Alternatively they could be thrown onto walls were they acted like claymores. They could be thrown onto the backs of members from the opposing team who would unknowingly walk into a group of team members and then explode. The grenades could also be attached to other objecets such as the corpse which when moved became a booby trap and blew up.


The grenades could either be flashbangs, smoke grenades or explosive grenades which increased the player's choices and uncertainty immensely thus increasing the gameplay potential considerably.


Our long term plan was to develop a single player game once the multiplayer game had become established and we were in the process of contacting investors when the project had to be stopped.