Adam Foster,
Minervas designer, is critical of Valve's design of
Half-Life 2 maps. His belief is that game developers focus on creating gameplay friendly environments that do not work in an architectural way, "a series of unconnected boxes" says Foster,
Minervas environments are built as actual environments (with correctly proportioned structures and areas) with gameplay worked in later. This creates a more open design, in which players may, in places, navigate in multiple ways. Later locations can be seen in earlier stages of the game (along corridors or through windows for example). Map design is the mod's hallmark. While all levels are constructed primarily using Valve's resources, with few new models or textures, Foster follows his own design ideals – that of compact, well designed maps. Although the levels seem huge, as play unfolds, they are in fact very small - wrapping around to use the least space possible. This creates a sense of realism. As pointed out by Planet Half-Life: "Instead of relying on horizontally-sprawling, immense maps that stress the engine's area-capabilities to its max,
Minerva maps are incredibly small. This is because of Foster's ground-breaking idea to utilize every possible area to its maximum potential, and instead of expanding horizontally, he expands vertically." As a result,
Minerva maps have a much shorter load time than maps in the original game. Foster creates the maps in layers. Once a layer is filled he moves the design downwards, which both helps to propel the storyline (a descent into a mysterious shaft) and also makes the best use of space. Visually the maps are of a high quality, with
HDR lighting implemented in the latest release, and the environments match those of the official game in look and feel. The player's Combine opposition are positioned logically, a feat given the vast number of communicating areas in each map. New adversaries do not spawn as soon as the player completes an objective but appear realistically as the episode progresses. The first Minerva map was inspired by the fully modelled island design of the
Halo: Combat Evolved level "The Silent Cartographer". Foster describes Minerva as an "anti-modification": "The aim isn't to replace as much game content as possible; instead, it's to tell my own apocryphal story set in the
Half-Life 2 universe, and to actually release something for the public to play." The mod's companion website is available in French, German, Spanish, Italian, Polish, and Russian. Localization packs developed by the LocWorks game localization team were released in November 2008. Foster was recruited by Valve to work on the
Half Life 2: Episode Three development team, and began working for them in October 2008. Foster initially stated his intention to continue working on "Out Of Time" in his spare time. However, in a later interview with
Eurogamer, Foster stated that the series would probably not continue. Foster continues to be employed at Valve and was involved with map designs of
Portal 2. ==Reception==