[WIP][Serious Sam Revolution Mod]The Exhumed Encounter

[FireSeraphim]

What is this?
The Exhumed Encounter is my first and current Serious Sam project and mapset. The Exhumed Encounter is loosely based on and inspired by maps from the PSX and PC versions of Powerslave (otherwise known as Exhumed in Europe)

Why make this?

• Because the Serious Engine is most ideal for this project due to it's capability far exceeding the capabilities of the SlaveDriver or Build Engine
• Because I want to at least put a dent in the drought of single player mapsets for Serious Sam
• Because I am kinda jaded with the Doom community (due to that community's hard core "creative" conservatism and overall blind worship of Vanilla Doom based and Boom based sourceports and their seemingly outright blind dislike of ZDoom based mapsets and mods) and I wanted to generally start over and for me, making maps with SED1 (the variant that Revolution has) is a chance at a new start, this community is still young and open minded.
• Because I believe this has the potential to be an awesome thing in of itself.

On that note, I figure the few people on this forum who actually kinda follow me would appreciate this thread. I will admit that I'm kinda fond of you guys and gals over here for having the courage to stand up against the Doomworlders and their blind insistence of "BOOM or die". It's people like you who really keep doom alive despite the continued malice and contempt the old timers show towards anything that even remotely change the core gameplay of doom to keep it fresh.

Do you have any concrete plans for this project?
I do have a few plans, some of which are dependent on SSR's continued development as a Serious Sam Classic Sourceport.

• Hopefully when the feature to create custom enemies becomes available I would like to recreate a few of Powerslave's enemies to add to this project bestiary, such as the Mummies, the Anubis Zombies (which I will rename to Anubis Warriors), The Bastets and the Terrarians (tiny blue scorpion enemies, slightly smaller than a Marshhopper), as well as the three boss enemies (Set, Selkis, and Kilmaatikhan the Kilmaat Queen)
• Also I am hoping the feature to code custom weaponry becomes available as well due to my interest in adding just the Cobra Staff, the Amun Bombs and the Ring of Ra to Sam's arsenal. (The Cobra Staff in all versions of Powerslave fired a homing serpert project but not very rapidly. It's kinda like the rocket launcher of Powerslave so to speak, the Amun Bomb is an accurate grenade that explodes on impact with any surface or any enemy and the Ring of Ra fire a shitton of tiny bouncy projectiles).
• Now that I mentioned it, it would be pretty nice to be able to tweak the Shotgun and Super Shotgun in Sam's arsenal to be more like their equivalents in Doom 1 and 2
• There's a few songs in the Powerslave OST that either need "Peace" or "Medium" variants of themselves (depending on the nature of the song itself) and unfortunately I am no musician, I also do not have the money to hire any, I am hoping for some volunteer musicians. So far Jimmy has stepped up to the plate and is working on "Peace" variations of the Karnak Sanctuary and Set Arena theme

Here is a list of the planned levels for this project, the list itself may subject to change, maybe even more than once: Click here for the proposed levels list.

Do you have any screenshots or anything to show for what all you have said so far?
Why yes I do.
Warning! These screenshots are outdated (Stuff prior to March 03, 2015)

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E1M1 - King Ramses Tomb


E1M2 - Dendur


E1M3 - The Scorpion Pit





E1M4 - Karnak



E1M5 - Karnak Sanctuary

New Screenshots (March 03, 2015)

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NEW! E1M5 - Karnak Sanctuary

Gameplay Videos

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Playthrough footage of "E1M2 - Dendur" recorded by 7Smoke's and Seriously!'s resident cameraman, Artyom Havok

Progress Notes (Updated)

• one of the problems that had me eventually leaving the Doom community was the lack of feedback I got in proportion to the amount of views my thread got. I don't care if people simply say "it looks good" or "I like it", Any feedback is appreciated. (My problem was that I barely got any feedback but got a frustratingly high amount of thread views meaning that I know people are aware of my project but are hesitant to say anything whatsoever)
• I have been fiddling around with Wings 3D(3D Modeling program) and generally trying to learn how to model a little bit (so far I have used it once and I think I have learned alot on how to use it.)
• In the meantime I'm upgrading the textures to try and be on par with the textures from SSFE and SSSE in terms of overall resolution (The average texture size in SSR, (which is using it's own version of SED1) is 512X512. I know it's an unrealistic goal to try and HD-ify the original textures from Powerslave in such a way it could be considered "modern" which is why I'm instead oping to try and match the texture standards of SSFE (basically texturing circa early 2001, which was when SSFE was released) Which gives me a little more leeway for occasional small blemishes)
• I'm also waiting on a couple of people to hand over some logs they have. This pastebin log should explain everything: http://pastebin.com/R3G6wP7Q

[xenoxols]

Well, I for one support this. Will the levels be more like the PSX or DOS versions.

[FireSeraphim]

[00:36:08] <wildweasel> Are you sticking closer to the "remix" levels or the PC ones?
[00:36:32] <FireSeraphim> I'm sorta remixing levels from both the PSX and PC versions
[00:37:11] <FireSeraphim> some levels will kinda veer to be more faithful to their console/PC counterparts and some will deviate depending on my creative whims

This IRC Log should answer your questions. also I fixed the link to the proposed levels list.

[darkhaven3]

Why make this?

• Because I am kinda jaded with the Doom community (due to that community's hard core "creative" conservatism and overall blind worship of Vanilla Doom based and Boom based sourceports and their seemingly outright blind dislike of ZDoom based mapsets and mods)

On that note, I figure the few people on this forum who actually kinda follow me would appreciate this thread. I will admit that I'm kinda fond of you guys and gals over here for having the courage to stand up against the Doomworlders and their blind insistence of "BOOM or die". It's people like you who really keep doom alive despite the continued malice and contempt the old timers show towards anything that even remotely change the core gameplay of doom to keep it fresh.

I've been a member of Doomworld since 2002 and a Doom player since 1994; if there's anything that's hampering the community, it's this kind of shit-talking and perceived divisiveness where none actually exists. If you make a mod, people will either like it or hate it and there isn't shit you can do about it. Focus on making a good mod and less on being "edgy" and "breaking new ground by using a non-vanilla engine". That's asinine.

If anything, I'd post my mod to Doomworld first and foremost before I'd consider releasing on ZDF; DWF's forum members are far more willing to engage in legitimate critique of my work and are far less likely to coddle me.

[Athel]

Well, I was a DoomWorlder before...something...happened. Im gonna say to you what I would have said if you posted on DW.

That stuff you got there is very promising. Keep it up.

[Big C]

What darkhaven said. I don't think there's as much of a hatred of ZDoom mapping over there so much as a combination of an emphasis on it here plus a lack of emphasis on it over there. You'll find old EDGE/3DGE mods over there, for example, as well as vanilla and ZDoom levels.

[Marisa the Magician]

Oh, so this is why you always showed up using the editor on steam...

Neat!

[Project Shadowcat]

If anything, I'd post my mod to Doomworld first and foremost before I'd consider releasing on ZDF; DWF's forum members are far more willing to engage in legitimate critique of my work and are far less likely to coddle me.

I get a sort of different impression over there; my first visit did not go very well there, but that was a full decade ago and I'm sure things have changed since then.

I've also not really wanted to share my work there due to the subject material. Alas, I'm kinda derailing...

[FireSeraphim]

Screenshots of E1M5 - Karnak Sanctuary can be found in the OP now.

[FireSeraphim]

More new screenshots of E1M5 - Karnak Sanctuary in the OP

[Big C]

That entrance shot of Karnak Sanctuary is nice!

[FireSeraphim]

I'm thinking about doing two things in my mod and I need everyone's opinions on 'em.

• I'm thinking of outright dropping Co-op support for my mod due to the sheer amount of work required to get the levels "co-op friendly"
• I wonder if it would be a good idea to put in easter eggs in my levels. I'm kinda on the fence on this because the only noteworthy easter eggs that Powerslave/Exhumed had were the lobotomy software dolls and I dunno. I'm worried that "*Croteam" styled easter eggs would ruin the vibe somehow

*To better clarify what I mean by "Croteam" styled easter eggs, I mean rooms who's sole purpose is to contain a shout-out prop of sorts

[FireSeraphim]

Consequences be damned. I have officially decided to drop Co-op support from my mod. I know this will not be a popular decision with everyone but I feel it would be for the best. On the subject of easter egg rooms I'm going to add a few in, just not every single level.

[FireSeraphim]

I apologize if news on this project has slowed to a crawl but rest assured that I'm still working on it.

[FireSeraphim]

Even more new screenshots of E1M5 - Karnak Sanctuary in the OP, look in the new screenshots spoiler, the older screenshots have been moved to the outdated screenshots tab.