Everyone knows Garry’s Mod (opens in new tab), the landmark physics sandbox mod for Valve’s Supply Engine that can be utilized for every part from creating customized sport modes to messing round with Half-Life 2 characters. Because it first appeared in 2004, and was printed by Valve as a standalone sport in 2006, Garry’s Mod has offered over 18 million copies, all below a gentle $10 price ticket.
However earlier than Garry’s Mod there was JBMod (Steam web page (opens in new tab)), the primary ever mod for the Supply Engine. The mod was created to allow the physics gun (or physgun), a instrument minimize from Half-Life 2 that operated equally to the gravity gun, permitting gamers to select up and manipulate objects utilizing a blue beam of sunshine.
As typically occurs with mod tasks, work on JBMod by its creator, JB55 (JackBox55), did not final lengthy earlier than being handed off to a different modder, however Garry Newman used JBMod as a supply of inspiration, experimenting along with his personal mod to spawn manhacks and create rocket launchers that fired melons. Quickly Garry’s Mod (then often known as GMod) had extra options just like the physgun and the flexibility to rope or weld objects collectively, and finally its well-known sandbox map, gm_construct, to function a physics playground.
Regardless of preliminary criticism that Garry’s Mod was too much like JBMod, gamers started flocking to Newman’s sandbox. The modders engaged on JBMod could not sustain with Garry’s Mod’s rising checklist of options, and finally improvement stopped altogether.
Higher late than by no means, I suppose: As noticed by PCGamesN (opens in new tab), JBMod has lastly appeared on Steam (opens in new tab), 18 years later. “The preliminary Steam launch brings the unique mod from 2004 to a extra fashionable engine. Keep tuned for additional updates! As at all times, JBMod 0.6 is coming quickly,” reads the mod’s Steam web page, which does not seem to have any official involvement from JBMod’s authentic creator.
I attempted out JBMod briefly in the present day, and there is a sandbox map with item-spawning stations and the physgun, with console instructions enabled to spawn objects or load maps from Supply Engine video games you at the moment have put in. Past a fast glimpse at how the mod works, or a nostalgia hit for individuals who performed with it again in 2004, there’s not a complete lot there, particularly in contrast with Garry’s Mod. Nonetheless, it is by no means not enjoyable to fling physics objects round, although the choices for “Discover a Server” and “Create a Server” are adopted by the phrases “Not Really useful.”
In response to the mod lastly making its approach to Steam in spite of everything these years, Newman says JBMod wasn’t only a supply of inspiration for Garry’s Mod, however supplied plenty of motivation to proceed engaged on it:
I used to be really frightened of jbmod after I was making gmod.. they at all times claimed to be nearly to make an enormous launch that will render us redundant. This is without doubt one of the causes I labored so exhausting for therefore lengthy to push it ahead so it could not get caught. https://t.co/jDvz1zFqHaOctober 9, 2022
“I used to be really frightened of jbmod after I was making gmod,” Newman stated on Twitter. “They at all times claimed to be nearly to make an enormous launch that will render us redundant. This is without doubt one of the causes I labored so exhausting for therefore lengthy to push it ahead so it could not get caught.”
He needn’t have nervous: Garry’s Mod has been one of many most-played video games on Steam for almost the whole thing of its existence, and I do not think about JBMod is any extra of a menace now that it is on Steam too.