How an indie dev convinced Valve to allow his Half-Life game on Steam

Gordon Freeman
(Image credit: Valve)

Two years ago, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:indie game developer (or PinkyDev on ModDB) started working on a side project that would become Codename: Loop, a twin-stick shooter based on the original Half-Life, with the hopes of eventually bringing it to Steam. This week, he was overjoyed to : Half-Life creator and Steam operator 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Valve has given him the greenlight

"A year and a half ago I wrote to Valve telling them about my project," Almenara tells GamesRadar. "At that time the project was not very advanced, but the answ🐠er I received was that due to the nature of the project – it is a game made in Unity and not a mod – it was complicated to be accepted on Steam. However, the employee who responded to th✨at email told me to focus on the mechanics and try to do something fun. So it was a no but also a yes? Or at least that's how I interpreted it." 

"I kept working on the project despite the response because, in a certain way, I felt that if I did something of quality they would take it into account,ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ and I also have a lot of fun working on this project," he continues. "So a few 🧜months ago when I felt I had something good, I contacted them again, and after several verifications through Steam they allowed me to publish the game because it was good and fun!" 

With Valve's blessing, Almenara – along with the few other people who've been helping him along the way, especially with map design – hopes to have a Steam page for Codename: 🤡Loop live by the end of the year, hopefully with a playable demo attached. Codename: Loop will be totally free, unlike loosely comparable works such as , a 2018 Half-Life fan game which caused🗹 quite a storm when it launched in a buggy state in February 2018, and is $9.99 to this day. 

Work on Codename: Loop – which was originally H💛alf-Life: Loop but later renamed to distinguish the game from official products and help it pass Steam verification – actually started as an offshoot of , a survival horror game Almenara is co-developing with his brother. This explains the bizarre image that Almenara shared with us, which is technically the earliest screenshot of Codename: Loop – Gordon Freeman standing in an opulent hall of the eponymous🐬 rogue mansion. 

Codename: Loop

(Image credit: Daniel Almenara / Valve)

"I wanted to put Gordon Freeman as a secret character in Rogue Mansiꦗon," he explains. "Rogue Mansion is a roguelike game, and after seeing the HL1 Gordon Freeman model in Rogue Mansion an idea came to my mind and I started working on Codename: Loop. Unfortunately Gordon Freeman will not ꩵbe in Rogue Mansion, or maybe he will be…" 

"My goal for this project is to have a complete recreation of the Half-Life campaign done in the top-down view with the addition of custom levels support and a roguelike mode," Almenara says of Codename: Loop, which he estimates will require another year of work that's usually done in his free time. "Initially the game was focused to be a roguelike Half-Life game, but later in the development I changed the focus because it was too much work and I wanted tཧo have something to show before trying to do that." 

Almenara says the original Half-Life is his favorite game in the series, so he "wanted to do something with the quality and respect that Half-Life deserves." It's heartening to see Codename: Loop headed to Steam after all t💙he work that's gone in♛to it.

"I'm a game developer tha♏nks to Half-Life, thanks to the modding community," Almenara concludes,🃏 "so I wanted to give something to them!" 

Here are 14 of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Steam Next Fest demos to play before the week is over. 

Austin Wood
Senior writer

Austin has been a game journalist for 12 years, having freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism de🐽gree. He's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize his position is a cover for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a lot of news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.