Oh my god of sadism.. You see how time passes? Exactly one year ago Halfquake Amen got released. I remember two guys who were waiting for it in the farm board and writing stuff like "Hey it's September 1st, where's Halfquake Amen?". Then a few days later the first review appeared on HL Atlas and the guy who's responsible for this site even supported us with the first download mirror.
Well, I guess summarized I can say Halfquake Amen became a success. People listen to its soundtrack on the way to work, others buy Halfquake tshirts or even HQA-ish-looking ties (no kidding!), some see HQA as a hope for their lifes and a few people even try to make a reality of its story.
Personal Halfquake was the next step to take for the growing Halfquake fan community. Some loved it and still do, some loved it and hate it now and some didn't even try. But then PHQ became a small community of people who didn't know that there are people out there who think like them. PHQ became a place where individualists gather and discuss about life, philosophy, halfquake and more.
And now some even try to get back to the roots. The first Halfquake.

In the fall of 2000 on a LAN party while others were playing Diablo II and betas of Counter-Strike two guys called muddasheep and blackjack were sitting in front of muddasheep's pc and playing Quake 1.

MS: "I love this architecture! And all this sadism, oh man did you see that?"
BJ: "Yeah, it's just brilliant."
MS: "Maybe we should make something like that for Halflife, you know?"
BJ: "Maybe... Do you know the movie called 'Cube'?"
MS: "Hmm.. no?"
BJ: "Hehe, I haven't seen it yet, but I like its story. It's about a few people who get stuck in a place with lots of cubes and in some of the cubes there are deadly traps."
MS: "And is there an explanation why they are caught in this place?"
BJ: "No, that's the point. They're just there. No reason."
MS: "Hehe, I like it. Maybe we should really try to combine those things. Let's say.. you get caught because you did something wrong in the past and now you get tortured. And we're laughing at them and their sufferings."
BJ: "Good idea! But how do we call it?"

I can't recreate the last words we've spoken and I can't remember all the names we've created. Most of them were really funny ("CubeQuake") and in the end we decided to call our modification "Half-Quake", a silly combination of Halflife and Quake. Of course, we didn't know what we were going to make, otherwise we'd have chosen a better name.
A few minutes later I started to make the first level including a short intro and a sample of manson's "beautiful people".
During the making of Halfquake (sorry, Half-Quake) I still went to school and around February I had some serious psychic problems which lasted for about one month. The portal map before Somos was made during this month which should be quite self-explanatory. Blackjack and I also visited a Manson concert which was one of the most important things in my life. This was also the time when we both started to make our emoticons the "wrong" way. For example ":)" turned out to be "(:".
And finally on April 19th 2001 after about 5 months of work Half-Quake got released. It took a few months until we got our first fan mails and reviews. But most people just hated it because of its sadism. We enjoyed it. And we even used some comments on the first one for a commercial for Halfquake Amen, about 5 months later.
On September 18th 2001 Half-Quake2 got started. We knew that this name wasn't that what we were looking for and so we decided to think about a subtitle for our second mod. Again I can't remember the names we've thought about but we all know what made it to the first place: Halfquake Amen.
I also remember the first room I've made. It was totally new for me being in an absolutely dark room with a large letter field. But I liked it. And so did blackjack.
After one year of torturing myself and having nightmares of Somos I finally released Halfquake Amen on September 1st 2002.

People liked it, people enjoyed it and some people didn't get it and hated it ("stupid level design", "n00b texture scaling", "no storyline", "too difficult", "not possible without cheating"). I almost won 20,000 Euro and a laptop and almost got a deal with a commercial guy from Vienna. Almost. Which means: I didn't get it.

And now?
My future is as empty as my past is full.
The inspiration is gone. Reality caught me. Real life sucks. The government sucks. And as if Manson could read my mind he sang in his stupid new song: "Everything has been said before, nothing left to say anymore."

My world is gone. And I want to get back to where I came from. I want to escape. Escape from the maze of life.

The sheep of insanity is back from The Vacation Of Fate.
The good things first.
We bought a Playstation 2 and played Shadow Hearts, Tekken Tag Tournament, Crash Bandicoot - The Wrath of Zortak and of course Final Fantasy X. And we were together the whole time, enjoying it. And I didn't have to go to work and I could find some new ideas for my next project.
Now I tell you the negative sides of the vacation.
My girlfriend broke her left little toe, we had to take care of the grave of her grandfather on the cemetary each day (light the candle, water the flowers), we had to take care of all flowers and plants in both flats, take out the dustbins, etc... we had to take care of her grandmother, especially her wound on her right foot, we had to decide what we all should eat and her grandmother isn't that easy on that one, and we always had to wash the dishes after meal, my girlfriend's cat died and she cried almost two nights and days, her mother also cried and I saw the fight between the veterinarian and the cat Silver who had attacked us because of a cancer we didn't know it had, and after he had taken a look into its throat he told us that it would be better when he puts it down, not only better for Silver, but also better for us, so after it was dead we stroke its fur and cried, then my girlfriends mother buried it with the help of some old friends in a garden beneath a large tree, we visited the grave at night and said goodbye for the last time.. then we took our second cat Spirit to our flat where we slept, because Spirit was in the flat of the grandmother before.. yes, everything's very complicated..
All in all in these four weeks of vacation we were tired, sweating in the heat, and really really pissed.
But at least we were together. Most of the time we couldn't enjoy it, but yet it still was good. Because if my girlfriend had to do that all alone it would be a lot worse.
My girlfriend's hometown is kinda like the City Of Death to me. Almost every year someone near to us dies. Last year it was her grandfather and the other grandmother. This year it was her cat Silver, it meant everything to her and now a part of my girlfriend is gone with the cat.
But it's not only in this city, it's everywhere around me actually. This year my grandfather died, the one who had the talent to entertain people, to make music, the one who gave me the talent to continue his musical ways.
In this four weeks of "vacation" I thought a lot about my future, my next steps, my next projects. There is a need for something new inside of me. I thirst for new grounds to explore, new abilities to develop. But I don't want to give up my old worlds. Not at any price.
But what happens if I don't have the time any more to do creative works, to create worlds out of my mind and to take care of them? I don't want to be surrounded by disappointed people, I don't want to be left alone anymore, just because the republic wants me to waste years of my life just to be actually able to live.
I dream of a place where we all can meet, hang around, eat and drink together. I really think that it would be possible to create a restaurant for depressive people, I even think that something like that already exists, but I won't hand out any alcohol or drugs. Depression is the worst drug anyway.
And pospi, I am with you all the time, I read your entries on your page, including the hidden ones and all I can do is wish you better times, I would do more if I could, I would meet you and talk to you and try to cheer you up, but at this distance I can only say:
Dude, you're one of us and you're gonna make it.

Stay dead.

H4ndy released a new version of BombVictims, now including a hot'n'freaky multiplayer mode!
Get it here or from the farm's stuff section..

I'm on vacation for the next three weeks.. recovering my body and soul.. thinking about the new worlds.. there are so many things to discover.. I can't wait to pick them up and show them to you all ...

Stay dead.

I'm tired ... down, sleepless, dreaming about "The Ring" and Hulk beating the girl of "The Ring" because I'm fed up being afraid of her.. I see her eye, I see her victims .. victims... I can't do anything for personal halfquake anymore .. I'm weak, I'm unmotivated, I'm tired.. I'm hanging around, playing around with the warcraft 3 worldeditor, playing counter strike after 2 years of absence just for the dumbness .. my mind needs a break, my body needs sleep, my soul needs company.. I'm on vacation the next two weeks, I won't be here for you .. but I'll be here for you again and I'm there if you really need me .. mail, icq or whatever..
I can't promise to be alive then, I can't promise anything .. I don't want to disappoint anyone anymore.. I already did .. I'm not a god, I'm still a human being, I'm still weak, I'm still controlled by the handicaps of humanity..
I want to do more comics, I want to erase all bugs in personal halfquake and add all features I've promised, I want to make new songs, I want to create a new world.. a new world above halfquake, the next level.. and destroy halfquake.. I need fresh ideas, I need a new world to think about.. I need..
.. sleep..
Then I'll be better again, hopefully ..
Take care of yourselves in the meantime .. I want to talk to you all again when I get back .. back from sleep..
...

Once again I've overslept, I didn't hear my mobile phone when the alarm went on. I've slept with the small light on, which is above my bed, because I was afraid that insects could come in the darkness and slit my stomache, pick my eyes out or do things I couldn't even imagine. I've killed a spider before I went to bed, I tried to smash it, but I decided to use a vacuum cleaner instead. After I've killed the spider I felt guilty, and I saw black dots in all corners, screaming "YOU KILLED OUR FRIEND! WE WILL KILL YOU WHEN YOU'RE ASLEEP!".
I woke up at 6 am, noticed that I was still alive, thankfully, and the light was still on, and the sun started to shine on this side of the world. I turned off the light and fell asleep again. For the last hour.
Friends tell me about their problems. Probems with other human beings, they get no attention, or they get negative attention, like playing jokes on someone for just being individual, for just drawing oblisks made of bones and skulls.
We aren't accepted, we aren't supported, we aren't alive. We're dead, we need psychiatrists, we need cliques, we need outer values, we need idols, we need new girl/boyfriends every week. We are dirt. We are nothing.
Just because of being individual.
Shouldn't there be a support, a present for creative and individual thoughts? People should be judged because of their inner values, people should work on their inner values.
Most of those non-individualists are just jealous because they can't think of their own worlds, they can't be creative, so they destroy individualism, because they can't handle it. This is what we should think when we deal with such persons.
They're those people with stones and sticks. We're those people with pencils and visions.
They're the present. We're the future.
They're dead, we're alive.