Garry's Mod

Hoo boy, where to begin. Where indeed. There’s just so damn much to say about Garry’s Mod. Well… for starters, it’s not so much a video game as it is a physics engine that allows for an insane level of creativity on the part of its users. …Yeah, that’s the short version. I don’t think I can properly review this as a video game, as it really is more like a tool to create games… or to have fun putting items together and seeing how they interact. Unless the games made by its users count as the game itself. Anyway!

Developed by Facepunch Studios and published by Valve, Garry’s Mod was released on… November 29th, 2006. Almost 20 years ago. That makes it one of the oldest products in my Steam library. When this game came out, I was still learning English in high school!

Everybody has to start somewhere. Me? I got myself
crushed by that tower. That's how I found out that we
still have HP during sandbox/construction...

Officially, this software was created by Garry Newman, a developer from Valve who worked on Half-Life 2. The original, titular mod was just that game with a few additions; but then this expanded into a full sandbox game comprising not only H-L2’s physics engine and assets, but also the assets of other games made with the Source engine. Notable ones include Left 4 Dead and Counter-Strike, as well as possibly the biggest name out of all of them, Team Fortress 2. The only requirement is that you own the other base games in your Steam library in order to access the assets.

If you ask me, the funniest thing about this article is that I took so long to get around to talking about Garry’s Mod that Facepunch Studios released a sequel in the meantime; S&box came out last April, roughly 19 and a half years after its predecessor. But let’s focus on Garry’s Mod, or as it is also known, GMod.

I could decorate a cozy home with this stuff.
Too bad this field isn't much of a house!

Full disclaimer here, I did play a few hours of this game in preparation for this article, but not dozens, so I obviously won’t have the experience of others who've spent hundreds of hours on it. Heck, this article will be less like a review and more of an informative thing. Though, it will have some of my impressions based on what I’ve tested. I wasn’t even sure whether I could cover this product correctly, it’s just a sandbox after all; as a result, expect this to be less about the game itself and more about what others have made from it. Honestly, I’m coming in so late to this that it’s probably the best I can do; celebrate how this program was used and how it left a mark in gaming history.

Unbridled Creativity

I grew fond of the lighthouse custom map; it's fuller than
some of the other maps, so I had fun exploring it. Plus,
there was the lighthouse. All that remained was to see
how I could change that environment for fun.

For anyone with more experience with it than I have, Garry’s Mod is one of the ultimate toys for creativity. Not only is there a large amount of items and NPCs readily available that you can set however you want, but there’s always the option of uploading more stuff as well. This thing’s workshop is packed with custom objects, fields, and anything else people have constructed to make the craziest combos of items possible. Of course, this also comes with the ability to combine items and weld them together to create contraptions. You know, the usual scientific method: Just to see what happens. And if it blows up, well, at least it was fun.

I'm one day early, but.... Happy Fourth of July! I am
celebrating exactly the way Americans like to.

Or… Maybe blowing shit up is all you’re looking for. I will be completely honest, I don’t think I have what it takes to master the creative tools at my disposal here. Besides, I’m busy with so many other games that I can’t quite find the time to learn how this all works. I’ll let far more skilled people do that work. For what it’s worth, I’ve had a lot of fun screwing around on various fields downloaded off the workshop. Some of those fields are incredibly pretty.

I promise I'm usually not that much of a pyromaniac.

Of course, I immediately went for the easiest possible thing to do. What can I blow up, and how? I know! Flammable barrels. No, summon an entire pile of them. On top of a building. Make sure to leave a small pyramid by the edge of the roof, so you can snipe it from afar… and watch the fireworks! Or maybe surround a building with those barrels, then shoot one while you’re in a safe spot.

I’m freaking 12, I swear. For what it’s worth, this basic exercise taught me some GMod basics through simple trial and error, so at least it had its use.

You can find plenty opf enjoyment with the base stuff too,
since you can summon friendly NPCs and some enemies,
and just see them fight each other.

Once you figure out how to weld things in place or onto other objects, you open the door to even more possibilities. Tons of elements that you can bring out are just that: Pieces to assemble however you see fit. And that’s just the stuff available from the get-go! Anyone with knowledge of the Lua programming language can add anything they want into the game. Is it missing just that one piece you need? If you can’t find it in someone else’s workshop item, and you’re skilled enough to create it yourself, then do it! That said, you’re very likely to find stuff you need in the workshop; GMod doesn’t contain *that* much in its base, the real interest is to load up any mods you can find that you want to include. That’s kind of in the name, after all. For the record, at time of writing, the sandbox's Workshop page had 2 MILLION items.

Unbrid- Wait, I Already Said That

I guess it bears repeating then. Beyond props, you can even summon NPCs and position them to your liking. Or, perhaps, you’d rather have them move around? You can set up their AI any way you’d like. Someone with decent skills at designing places and setting up AI could, in fact, build a whole game out of this sandbox!

Set your camera, move your stuff, offer nice sights.
This may be the start of your filmmaking career!

Or perhaps a short film. A camera is readily available in the base game, to take pictures that will be uploaded to Steam. However, thanks to the ability to add a video camera to the game, users eventually took to making their own videos using the various assets. Machinima as a genre didn’t start there, but GMod absolutely gave this type of animation a massive push forward. Hell, this eventually led to animators in that community climbing up the ranks and joining the animation industry as proper studios. The founders of Glitch Productions, makers of The Amazing Digital Circus (…does that franchise also count as a video game series? Should I review it someday?), Murder Drones, and Gameoverse, started with Machinima videos made from GMod and Super Mario 64! I didn’t even know about that till I started my research!

Those guns do seem like decent props for an RP...

Okay, let’s say you aren’t into the filmmaking side of things. You love to tell stories, though! Well, GMod is home to large communities of role-players. Customize your character however you see fit, either creating your own skin or taking any made available from the start. Then, join a server, and if you’re allowed in, take part in the collaborative, improvisational storytelling! I will admit that’s not my thing (or, at least, I wouldn’t use GMod for that), but hey, I won’t yuck anyone’s yum; I’m glad a sandbox game like this allowed the creation of such spaces.

But! We all know why you’re truly here: To play proper games, designed and built within the sandbox, using its many tools. Oh, there’s a plethora of those.

The One Behind So Many Others

There's an impostor Among Us.

Tying somewhat into the roleplaying aspect mentioned above, if your jam is community games like Werewolf, Mafia, or anything else that involves social deduction, you’ll find more than your fill around here. The addition of a game-specific context can help. The most famous instance born from GMod is Trouble in Terrorist Town, but others have been made as well, like Murder! or Homicide, all going along with the general theme. For TTT, one player out of four is a killer who must get rid of all the innocent players, while the rest must figure out who the killer(s) is/are. When there are eight players or more, one out of eight is a detective tasked with finding the killer(s). Depending on the server, additional roles can be included, which toy with the skills and tasks each player can have. (I think it says quite a bit that some of the most popular games of this decade were similar to it!)

The more I think about it, the more I realize that GMod,
beyond a game, had become a tool for socialization, a space
for people to meet and have fun. Even more of a reason
to respect it, then.

Now defunct is GMod Tower, a network of servers that allowed players to take part in various minigames recreated in the engine. From a main lobby, players could enjoy together any other game made available, all while socializing. This is one of those addons that is worth mentioning as part of GMod’s history, even though it doesn’t exist anymore on its own. It was substituted by Tower Unite, developed on Unreal Engine 4, released as Early Access to Steam on April 8th, 2016, with the game getting a full release on April 19th last year. See what I said about GMod being a launch platform for new games and ideas?

cue ! sound "I've been spotted!"

Hm, that stool looks suspiciously out of place...

Though, in my opinion, the crowning game of them all may be Prop Hunt. Players alternate between being props and hunters. Props have some time at the start to wander the current map and select an item on the playing field; they will turn into that item, and must then hide around the map. Seekers come in with guns, and their role is to shoot the hidden players; they must be careful though, as shooting an item that is not a hidden player will cost them some health. To make it a little easier for seekers, props are forced to emit a taunting sound occasionally; they can trigger it themselves when they want, or it will play on its own if it wasn’t heard for a while. This is the game mode I’ve had the most fun with; nothing quite like winning because you found the perfect hiding spot, or managed to hide as a small item (like a can) among others. And in turn, it was fun to play as a hunter suddenly chasing down a small prop fleeing through bullets. This mode had its own “follow the leader” moments, with plenty of similar hide-and-seek games popping up on the Steam store, with similar concepts or new twists on the idea (the latest novelty is MECCHA CHAMELEON; Looks fun!).

And of course, I am forgetting so many more. PvE, PvP… if you want it, someone’s made something for it.

Final words

Unbridl- Okay, I've said it already!

I knew this wasn’t going to be a proper review. How can you review this, exactly? Nah, I think I preferred to do a look at large and all the ways in which Garry’s Mod shaped gaming – because it did. This thing has made history in the industry, and more than once, at that. Not only is it the highest-selling PC-exclusive game of all time, but it started trends, started careers, and is still enjoyable if you put in the time to learn its build system and how to have the most fun with it. The constant fanbase, even 20 years later, and the incessant addition of new fanmade workshop items and mods, only helps cement just how beloved this simple sandbox game is. This was, indeed, not a review, more of a reverence.

I can imagine how that game was like back when Nintendo
stuff was tolerated in the workshop; a mess of Mario,
Pokémon, Zelda, whatever else, on top of the preexisting
insanity. That would have been great to experience. Alas...

I couldn’t have possibly spent enough time on this product to describe everything that’s in it. Beyond the proper sandbox mode that you can do on your own to learn the basics, there’s so many servers, for so many game types. I wouldn’t have been able to experience every single one of these, there’s just too many – hence the larger look at the features, instead of something far more specific recounting more of my playing experience. It would be impossible to check out even one percent of all the content uploaded to Steam’s GMod workshop, though I definitely got a good taste of fanmade maps and anything else that was available or recommended by the community at large. Of course, the more you download, the longer the loading times will be, so you can’t have too much stuff loaded in…

It’s too big. I just respect this game and the 20 years of fan creativity that it has encouraged. It’s popular and I didn’t need anything more to see exactly why. You will get far more out of this sandbox if you’re able to create your own assets and share them around, but the base game, its many servers, and its humongous collection of mods should be more than enough even for those who aren’t inclined towards making their own things.

And just like that, I wiped another big entry on my to-do list. See you next week for… Oh! It’s time for the anniversary review, and I am going back to one of two franchises covered in my very first article! Tune in to see that!