How The Hammer Editor Stole 7.5 Hours Of My Life

A very short tale, but I know it resonates with anybody who's touched this ancient piece of rubbish before.

I make Half-Life maps, mostly just for myself. When I first started, I used the Hammer Editor included with the Half-Life SDK on Steam. It was my first time mapping for Half-Life. I had previously made some maps for Team Fortress 2, so I wasn't walking in completely blind. Thankfully, my experience translated over nicely.

I decided to start off small, a square deathmatch map. I spent a total of 7.5 hours working on that map. On the 7.5th hour, my toaster of a computer crashed, and I lost all my data. The map file was corrupted and no longer opened. 7.5 hours of work lost, just like that.

I realise that Hammer wasn't at fault, rather my PC, but I don't care because I love complaining about Hammer, and I'm certain it had something to do with my PC comedically crashing at the worst time at my expense. That useless ancient piece of crud is my favourite punching bag of all time.

Nowadays, I use Jackhammer, and I'm glad to say it has stolen more hours of my life than Hammer has.