Hello everyone! It's been a while since the last “Featured Mod”, but I’m sure you’ve been handling the wait well thanks to the juicy Talos 2 reveal that you’ve got! Now it's time to get serious as in this episode we are featuring another great community campaign: “Crystal Impact!”
Crystal Impact is a collaboration project of 17 different mappers from the Slavic Serious Sam Community Khreth[discordapp.com]! The rules are simple: each participant must continue the previous person’s map with their own level while having two to three weeks to do so.

The story is the perfect warmup for the upcoming Indiana Jones movie! It follows Sam Stone himself, who finds a strange crystal that leads him on a long journey around the new power in the world, affecting different worlds and leading him to a new mysterious ally!

17 participants, 17 maps, and 10 unique worlds to explore!
On top of all that, over 50 different custom enemies from the T&C co-op pack, more than 5 bosses, and a whole load of guns!

So what are you waiting for, go ahead and start your Crystal Impact Journey!

https://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2940322581


⚪Hello Thanadrax and welcome back to the basement! Last time you were here you mentioned that you are running this collab project, well here we are a few months after its release, please tell us how challenging was it to organize a project of such scale and how happy are you with the end result.

Hey, it's Mr. Cool himself! Let's get straight to the question. To be honest, it is not the first time for me to organize some big events, and I didn't have problems with gathering and coordinating people.
The hardest part was the map pack itself. The first and the best part of the Khreth Mapping Challenge is the challenge term. No matter how skilled you are in modding - either a newbie or an experienced mapper, you have to make a level within quite a narrow timespan. It doesn't sound that hard on the first side - however, people forgot that they work on one map pack, together. Initially, there were 22 of us, others pretty much got scared of "group pressure" and abandoned us. It is understandable, since, once you realize that there are 17 more mappers waiting for your entry and it might not be that good at first, you begin to stress. It was my fault since I forgot to tell them about the polishing phase after everyone contributes to the project, and I will initially mention that in the next challenge.

Another hard part for me in terms of organizing was managing a common project vision. Many participants tried to change the direction of the mod's idea and gameplay, turning it into something else - be it a quick low resources shooter or puzzle-driven map, I had to explain that we are making a simple, Croteam - like a map pack with some funny story. I still can't believe everyone agreed on it almost instantly and got to fix their mistakes a few days later. I am happy with what came out of it, for sure.

⚪Congratulations on being able to manage all this and having a mutual agreement from everyone about the project's direction, that is rare. So this project was organized within the Khreth community but people outside of it were invited to join and participate if they had the desire to do so, how would you describe your community to those who are wondering if they should join it?

Thanks! Regards Khreth... it's hard to answer, but I'll try! Khreth initially was a roleplay-driven discord server for Slavic countries since 2017. In 2019, I opened a public branch for my friends to both play and roleplay on the same server so we don't have to hop from one place to another. In 2020, I divided the server into roleplay and non-roleplay sections, so people interested in games/creativity could keep themselves cozy without worrying about being "out of topic".

Khreth became a community in 2021 when I lowered the "curtains" and started letting everyone in. While it all sounds easy, the hardest part is to keep the very unique wave of community activity. It's a heavy task, sometimes you have to get rid of some people tending to break it apart, and sometimes you catch yourself on some organizing mistakes or even paranoia issues since you begin to see some kind of "enemy" in every single newbie. Regards that, I can give a simple but effective advice - let everyone in, community will eventually push out those who do not belong in here.

⚪Thank you for the answer! And now let's head to the project participants and hear about their experience working on the project! But actually, before we do this, the stage is all yours to share anything you wish with the Croteam Community!

I would like to thank Croteam for creating such amazing games which still inspire others to make something wonderful. No matter how far will I go from mod-making, Croteam games are forever in my heart. Talos 2 let's goooo!!!


LisSen

Originally posted by Mauritsio:

Participation in this challenge is something that I will remember for a long time. It was very cool to work with so many modders, where everyone supported each other. Since I was first on the list, I tried to make the map simple and introductory, like a little practice before the main content, and I think I got a good result.

Of the interesting stories, one can single out the story of crossbowmen. On the day of release, everyone complained about the crossbowmen on the towers with the phrase "fucking crossbowmen!", as they were almost invisible and difficult to kill. I fixed this problem, but now there are letters on the towers saying that there used to be crossbowmen there.

In conclusion, I want to say a special thank you to Riba4ok13, who made me participate in the challenge, Thanadrax for hosting this challenge, and to all members of the Khreth server for a warm welcome. See you!

Cyborg

Originally posted by Mauritsio:

Ooh, it was a wonderful experience! I would love to repeat it!
I really liked this unusual format, where each participant continues the plot of the campaign, and he is given 2 weeks for this. It was interesting to see who did what and what card you should make as the queue approached.

And so, when it was my turn, the campaign was in a very interesting position, where it was necessary to make a slightly more coherent story, summarizing all the previous ones, and at the same time make such a map that the player got out somewhere from another world.
I had to replay all the previous maps, collect all the Netricsa messages, generalize, try to patch up the holes, and think through the details. And then do the first section in the other world, the boss fight, and then a more relaxed walk on the moon, to the beautiful soundtrack of Final Fantasy 14. Oh yes, and, of course, do not forget to hide the secret room with the rabbit statue and the gallery.

BuIlDaLiBlE:

Originally posted by Mauritsio:

Working as a mapper in a group project was the first for me, this was also a very solid reason for why I chose to participate. I think the group effort thing is what made other people want to participate and while the ride was a bit rough, I honestly believe everyone did a great job and that's what really shows that humans are indeed social beings that can do really cool stuff together. I was very glad to be a part of the effort, so I'm looking forward to the next Khreth Mapping Challenge next year.

Riba4ok13

Originally posted by Mauritsio:

Personally, I enjoyed participating in the Crystal Impact. It's a good way to get a feel for teamwork on one big project. The very idea of sequentially creating maps based on the ending of the previous map is pretty cool. And the most important thing in my opinion is the final polishing of each map and bringing the whole project to an overall quality.

Of the interesting stories along the way, I can only mention my shock at the quality of the map, after which I had to make my own, although it only gave me inspiration. So I worked really hard to keep up with the increased quality of the previous map. It was my second map of all time. And so, when I was finished with the visuals on the map, I was very surprised with the results. I even asked myself, "Did I create it?". I hope that in the future there will be more projects like this, where you can get together in the company of mappers and do something great and just have a good time during development.

$uper_Dimann$

Originally posted by Mauritsio:

This is my first time participating in this kind of event in Serious Sam, and, to be honest, there are a lot of emotions. When I found out that I was in the middle of the queue, I exhaled at the same time, because I understood that in the middle of the map pack the gameplay could be made more dynamic, and after a while, I experienced a feeling of impatience. I wanted to make a map as soon as possible and go to rest. As soon as some of us began to leave the challenge for our own reasons, I was seriously worried.

Well, as soon as it was my turn, I, as if at the snap of a finger, rushed into the editor and sat there until two in the morning, which I do not recommend. I was so afraid of not being on time that I riveted my card in 2 days, becoming the fastest of the participants in the entire challenge. Thanks to this, we saved many days, and the map pack came out much earlier than it could have come out. Before submitting the level, I caught a bunch of errors, which caused the level to crash, and I thought that everything was over. However, I still searched for a solution all my free time, and luck smiled at me.

And so the level turned out - Blooming Plateau. Thank you for your attention.

Effect of Parasha

Originally posted by Mauritsio:

Khreth Mapping Challenge for me fell on a very difficult time - the first job, the weekend spent all the time for the editor, and 10 hours of work on the map.
But despite the lack of time, it was a hell of a lot of fun. It was the first time I participated in something so big, I was able to communicate and work with many people in our community who seemed to me inaccessible before.

Of the stories, perhaps the most interesting relates to the 6th level, which was made by Artem-41. His unique vision of his own map was completely out of the mood of the then existing 5 levels and simply flew away towards the sci-fi setting at the speed of characters from Quake. After a while, he redid the map and that's when it sparkled with new colors: mysticism and technology of aliens, the story of Zorg mercenaries, and the continuation of the plot.

I enjoyed working together, discussing the story, and playing maps in co-op. Khreth - in itself turned out to be a small and pleasant community gathered from Serious Sam's fans and not only. Maybe you will also join and participate in the second KMC? Will wait!

Andrey Kustov

Originally posted by Mauritsio:

KMC presented a great experience of developing your own map in a short time. This is an indescribable feeling of belonging to something more, revealing talents and creativity to an absolute beginner in mapping. I immediately understood that the first pancake would come out lumpy. So what to do? Pressing on what you know best - narrative.

The map was supposed to emphasize the atmosphere of the doomed place. In the past, many cataclysms happened on Earth, but life always won. Everything is different here.
I wanted the players to feel what Mental's victory really means.
The planet is waiting for a resurrection, a new dawn that will never come. It seems to me that this thought has always been the underside of the Serious Sam universe.

It's time to play some Tennis, Serious Sam style!

The 7Smoke Tennis project was the first collaboration project of this kind in the Serious Sam community where several mappers come together to create a unique Serious Sam experience. Each map has been made by a different mapper, picking up where the last map left off (passing it to each other just like a tennis ball!), thus creating great variety in map style and level pacing.

There are a total of 6 Tennis Projects, all of them organized by none other than Noam 2000!
The first 3 tennis projects were on a smaller scale, with Tennis 1 and 2 had six participants and Tennis 3 having four, with all rounds released in a span of 2 months between each other.

Tennis 4 in 2016 is where things started expanding, with 14 mappers working on the project. The campaign now had a whole thoughtfully fleshed-out story, and more quality control was being done on the levels. The story takes place in an alternate timeline where Earth is destroyed by one of Mental's elite commanders: "Solgar", as Serious Sam chases him across the galaxy to exact his revenge. It was the first tennis project to feature a cast of voice actors, with one of them being John J Dick himself, playing the role of Serious Sam!

After one year break from Tennis, in the Summer of 2017, Noam opened the registrations for the 7Smoke Tennis Project 2018! Due to 20 participants applying for it, Noam took the decision to split the project into 2 separate campaigns: the 7Smoke Tennis Project Blue and Project Red, with each one of them having 10 modders.

The Tennis Blue campaign is more heavily focused on the battles and the custom range of heavy artillery with which the player can blast through the forty different enemy types including bosses!

Traverse through desolated fortresses, frozen caverns, and advanced technological strongholds - to name a few. As you travel through these domains, searching for its hidden secrets, its inhabitants will come into play - a fully voice-acted cast of characters serve to weave a story about a forsaken realm burnt by a devious tyrant and his warriors, and the player character's journey to carry the legacy of those who have met with an unfortunate fate. And to make things even spicier, in this mod, your choices matter and lead to different endings.

While not a prequel or sequel to its Blue sibling, Tennis Red has a larger focus on the story and an overarching narrative. The year is 2165, and thanks to ancient intervention, the reach, power, and influence of the human race across the galaxy have become much greater than anyone could have imagined.

Red edition’s story takes place in three distinct locations in three different chapters:

• Parsart, a purple-clad planet unable to support human life, but is full of fantastical creatures.
  
• Zalgun, once overflooded with rainforests but is now a barren desert with the occasional abandoned stronghold.
  
• Finally, the campaign climaxes at the ever-so-familiar Earth. There’s plenty of exploration to be had in these locations – but more importantly, a lot of frantic action as well.

You can really feel that this map pack is made by a variety of people as each one of them sprinkles his own vision and ideas that while different than what the hardcore Serious Sam players are accustomed to, still stays true to the core Serious Sam run-and-gun gameplay and also keeping cohesion between levels.

Link to Collections:
7Smoke Tennis Project 1 to 4The 7Smoke Tennis Project Blue
The 7Smoke Tennis Project Red

⚪Hello and welcome back to my basement Noam two years later! I hope you feel honored to be the first community member who visits me twice! I've invited you here today to talk about sports.....more precisely about Tennis, are you a good Tennis player?

Thanks for having me again! Ironically I haven't played any real tennis... I need to get that fixed.

⚪ Okay then, this totally changes my whole plan for this interview... I was about to ask you what you think about Roger Federer's retirement and about Djokovic visa ban being overturned, but I guess I need to come up with new pair of questions. Okay, let's start with how did you come up with the idea for the Tennis Project and when did you decide to take this next step in expanding it further because tennis projects 1 to 3 were on a much smaller scale and suddenly you have tennis round 4 which turned out much bigger in scale and obviously Tennis Project 2018 being even larger with almost two times the modders and also with quality control over the maps.

The idea for Tennis came from "Gmod Tennis" videos that I used to adore as a kid, where the basic idea was that two individuals would create a machinima series, with each episode being made by the opposite party, working off of the previous video - hopping back and forth just like in tennis. I wanted to take it one step further and invite all my friends to create one single campaign, in hopes of making it a little more unique and to create a fun community activity. The name "Tennis" may not make much sense anymore in this context, but 14-year-old me clearly wasn't concerned about these types of things.

We kept doing these Tennis projects mainly as community activities and get-togethers but decided to stop with the third iteration seeing as interest dwindled. Fast forward a few months later, with massive growth in the community, suddenly we had people lining up and constantly asking about a 4th round... so we did it! And with 15 participants (minus one dropout), we took the initiative to make this project feels a little more special than those that came before.

The same can be said for the 2018 iterations of Tennis, with us growing a little wiser and more experienced, we knew better the directions and decisions we had to take for the project. And what we didn't know... we had to learn!

⚪ How challenging was it to manage 20 people across two projects, and was all this experience you've gained from the Tennis project usable in your current endeavors as a game developer?

It was... very challenging, without a doubt. We've hit a lot of snags and I've learned a lot of stuff that continues to guide me in my current endeavors. Thankfully I wasn't alone, and at the end of the day it was a team effort - everyone put a little bit of themselves to help and get things moving, and even people who weren't directly participating in the mapmaking still joined in to provide assistance.

⚪And one final question before we move on to the participants in the 7Smoke's Tennis project. Would you be interested in participating in such a project? Let's say someone else is taking care of the organization and all you have to do is boot up good ol Serious Editor and create a single level, do you do it?

If availability allows me, absolutely! I don't get much time anymore these days to focus on mapping, let alone modding for other games, so an excuse to do so would be a lot of fun.

⚪Because this whole Campaign was a team effort of many people, I also invited some of the participants of the Tennis Project to share their experience with those projects!

Mauritsio

Originally posted by Mauritsio:

Working on Tennis certainly had its ups and downs, at least for me. When we started out with the first one we barely had any idea what we were doing - everyone only had a week to finish up their maps, and we never put any work into giving the project a sense of direction at all. I think it really shows in the quality of the end result - fun, but creatively disjointed at times. Sure we enjoyed doing it, but it's admittedly hard for me to look back on it fondly.

That being said, we got much better at that in Tennis 2018 - we had a month instead of a week and a more collaborative workflow, with the contributions of one person more clearly dripping into the other maps. I'll always remain proud of what we accomplished there. I won't forget the busy month I had getting my map for Red done in time, as well as the steps we took to get voice actors involved in the project. The vocal performances in both Red and Blue are one of the most consistent pieces of positive feedback we get from people playing the mod, so I'm very glad we put extra hours and effort into casting and vocal direction.

Vanya

Originally posted by Mauritsio:

My experience with the Tennis project is not a very extensive one given that I only participated once and during the early versions of the project, but I can give some personal thoughts about it all these years later.

After all this time I realize not only how important but also how enjoyable collab projects are, it is difficult to get mappers to work on one project together and then make sure it all works out, the only regret I have is with my own entry for the project.

I remember back in the day I made that level over a voice call so at the very least I had fun making it then. Nowadays though I sort of wish I had made a level that was a bit more serious as I believe that's the last map I ever made and shared publicly online, and that was almost 7 years ago as of me writing this down.

Those chances really don't come very often so it is a bit of a missed opportunity for me but it did leave a valuable lesson in me if a chance like this comes up where you get to participate in a collab project always make sure to give it an honest shot, even if the map doesn't play out perfectly you can always come back and update it to tweak it to your liking, a map like mine back then is certainly not something I can come back to and fix.

Adamaster

Originally posted by Mauritsio:

Working on the Tennis project was fun and educational. Though the realization was silly and not AAA, it gave me an opportunity to make and play the new content. There were plot twists in almost every level and battles were sometimes misplaced. It helped to learn more about Serious Engine 3 and experiment with level design. It was a great team-building experience with lots of memes and even John Dick voiced the lines. It took months to finish one mappack and couldn't participate in the last one, but would encourage everyone to try working on something like Tennis.

Pan

Originally posted by Mauritsio:

My experience was mostly good, ignoring that I may have had to blow a map or two up in the process. The inside jokes during development in each tennis were super memorable and were a nice bit of collaboration for each of the communities subsets. Sort of miss it at this point. Loved my work on the final tennis and seeing the inside jokes get fully developed in the end and carried on by other members.

Overall it was a good experience, there won't be anything like that again and I'm thankful to have been a part of it

UrbanTheHuman

Originally posted by Mauritsio:

The Tennis project has been such an enlightening experience for me. Every person involved gets a great chance to put their heart and soul into their own submissions and make the project better overall, leaving their own unique print on it, and getting some valuable experience from working on it.

When your name is in the middle of the list of Tennis participants, you can never know what it will turn into at the end and you have to rely on the levels that the previous mappers have made, but you have full control over the story at the time you get to make your own level, and that is quite liberating in a sense. Of course, you have to know yourself and your abilities well enough to create not only a good level, but create it in a limited time that you have, and time might just not turn in your favor every time. And so, in my own work, I see flaws that I could've avoided if I could dedicate more time and effort to it.

With Tennis, I've begun to understand the importance of allocating the right amount of time and making what is in my possibilities.

Thanadrax

Originally posted by Mauritsio:

It's been ages since tennis! I mean, the first one. It was my first ever level being made to release, it was a lot of fun and nerves. 7smoke tennis taught me how to do basic things in SED, allowed me to ask others how some things work, and just have fun in seeing how the storyline slowly distorts into something... different. The community is in dire need of more of such activities to see that making mods is not just for some new workshop content, but also great communication with others and learning of something new you totally didn't even think of. I personally would like to highlight Tennis 4 since this one felt like a big leap compared to others. Lots of great ideas, a vivid backstory of mod development with some local memes and struggles of actually maintaining the storyline this time, and a blazing source of inspiration for new worlds to make. And, this time, almost no signs of a "this was all just a dream, Sam" plot twist!

Hello and welcome to the first Featured Mod episode for 2023!
In today’s episode, we won't highlight a single map, but a whole package of them that we recommend you guys to check out. Today we are highlighting a contest organized by https://www.serioussite.ru/ called “Jingle Bombs 2022”.[www.serioussite.ru]

Jingle Bombs 2022 is a contest in which the contestants have to create a single-player or a cooperative map with a Christmas theme. The creation that captures the spirit of the Holiday the best and has the most effort put into it, gets the top prize.


The top 3 ranked maps are:

Winner - "Break the Loop" for Classic: TSE by “Cr1sTaL”
2nd Place - "Stolen Snow" for Serious Sam Fusion by “Riba4оk13”
3rd Place - "On the eve" for Classic: TSE by “TesLineX”

Those maps deserve a featured mod article of their own, but as I've said today, we will focus on the contest as a whole, so I strongly recommend heading over to the SeriousSite.ru website and giving those maps and also the rest of the ones submitted for the contest a check. There are a total of 8 submissions: four maps for Classic: The Second Encounter, three maps for Serious Sam Fusion, and one map for Siberian Mayhem.
Now you have plenty of variety and Serious Content to play in the upcoming snowy days!

In today’s basement chat, we will talk with the contest’s organizer who’s also a member of TimeLock Studio: Ar2R-devil-PiNKy! This is just one of the competitions that he has organized. He has been doing mapping contests since 2010 on various themes such as: Speedrun, RetroWave, Escape, Horror, Puzzles, and many many more. You can check all those competitions and maps on the SeriousSite.ru website. Now let’s head to the basement and talk with Ar2R-devil-PiNKy about all this stuff!

Link to the maps: https://www.serioussite.ru/forum/33-3959-1


Hello everyone! It's an honor for me to welcome our first guest in the basement for 2023- Ar2R-devil-PiNKy! He is a co-founder of SeriousSite.ru and a member of TimeLock Studio. He has been organizing contests and activities for Serious Sam for way too many years now!

⚪Welcome Pinky, nice to have you here finally. I've known you for many years now as we have co-hosted some community activities back in the day. Please introduce yourself to those of the community members that don't know you. When did you become a community member and when was the first time you started getting involved in creating community activities?

Hello Yasen, thank you for inviting me. My name is Arthur, I've been a fan of the series for more than 20 years, and have been modding for more than 17 years. I think probably every fan has come across at least one of my works, be it maps, mods, art, video content, etc. I became a member of the community back in 2009 when I was just connected to a good stable Internet. Loved playing Serious Sam 2 a lot, and during one of the co-op sessions I met two guys, they were ZIM and ALEX. ZIM introduced me to a website that he had just created. That's how it all started. The first contests were held by my friends, but a few years later I decided to make this event an annual one (with honorary members of the jury, of course). And a few years ago we added an additional second contest for every new year.

⚪You've had quite a long journey! There have been over 15 mapping contests. Which ones hold a special place in your heart and you would strongly suggest to the community to try? My personal favorites would be "Brainiacs[www.serioussite.ru]" and "Manhunt"[www.serioussite.ru].

Oh, honestly it's hard to give an answer to such a question, since each contest has its own gems, heh. I would advise to start with "Treasure World"[www.serioussite.ru], "Brainiacs"[www.serioussite.ru], "RetroSeriousWave"[www.serioussite.ru] and "Masters of Horror"[www.serioussite.ru] - that's my favorite ones.

⚪How would you rate last year's two contests that you hosted: "Please fly"[www.serioussite.ru] and "Jingle Bombs 2022"[www.serioussite.ru], in terms of community activity (submissions) and quality of maps? I'm interested in hearing from you since you have been a member of the community for such a long time, what do you think about the state of the Serious Sam community currently, and is there something that you think we can all do to improve it further?

Very solid. Did not even expect that there would be such a number of works. Mappers never cease to amaze with their ideas. I think the state of the Serious Sam community is more or less good now. Of course, due to the long time interval between the release of the main games of the series (Serious Sam 3: BFE and Serious Sam 4), a lot of time has passed and a lot of people have come and left, but this is a common thing. Sometimes old members who have left the community come back- once a fan of Sam, always a fan of Sam. People just need to be nice to each other and, if possible, not to disturb others too much with their Marsh-Hoppers in their heads.

⚪Very well said, people should always be nice to each other. It’s been almost 14 years now since you joined the community and you are now part of TimeLock Studio, and Croteam and you also have your own personal life. What motivates you to keep doing this volunteer work for the community and still be so engaged on all fronts?

The community itself. It's always nice to bring a little piece of joy to your favorite game and share it with others, and the process of creating something is still very exciting, even if there is very little free time for it now. It was also influenced by the fact that since the age of three I have been burning with the desire to create my own games (and in secret, I am slowly going to this) and Serious Sam modding has become a confident starting point in all this.

⚪Speaking of creating games, you now have a Serious Sam game behind your back! Could you please share some behind-the-scenes pieces of information on Siberian Mayhem: how did you join the project and what is your overall experience of working on it and having Croteam's support for it.

Sleepless nights and lots of fun. The story is quite simple, Kadath offered me to work on the project and I agreed. And sure I can tell you something interesting behind-the-scenes. You won't believe it! One day [REDACTED] and he, like, [REDACTED]. We look at [REDACTED] scene, and after that, we decide [REDACTED] until it's done. We finished at 4 o'clock in the morning (according to my time) and the result was great

⚪Well, I'm sure the community will love it so much once they read all this spicy information exclusively here in the Featured Mod article! Thank you for sharing it all. Now that we have covered Siberian Mayhem and the contests, I have to ask you about my personal favorite work of yours… Samolash. Do you plan on doing another episode and if yes then when can we expect one? Please tell me soon, the world needs more of it!

I am very glad that you liked it. Unfortunately, I can't give an exact date when, but I do aim to finish work on a new episode sometime in 2024. A lot of ideas have accumulated for the new episode and I'm hoping it will turn out to be the biggest and most interesting one! Moreover, new games have been added to the series and this is a huge scope for new jokes and parodies. And by the way, just like last time, I accept work from everyone who wants to participate in a new episode!

⚪Exclusive news right here: Samolash is returning in 2024! I think we have gone through most of the topics, so I have to ask you: what does the future hold for you? What are your future goals and things you would like to achieve in the upcoming 1-2 years? Should we also expect more contests?

Hehe, the jury members and I have already come up with themes for the following contests for years ahead. For example, the "Please Fly 2022" contest concept was invented in 2020. Annual contests have already become a SeriousSite legacy and we are not going to stop. We also have plans for other things, but it's too early to talk about them yet.

⚪Happy to hear that there are no plans of you stopping any time soon. I would like to thank you for coming by the basement and having a chat with me. I can't wait to see the future content from you. For the finale, by tradition, the stage is yours to address the community. Share anything you wish for them or simply give shout-outs! See you in the next episode everyone!

Thank you Yasen, and thank you handsome stranger who read this right now. Bye!

Welcome to the Christmas episode of "Featured Mod" series!

Today we will spotlight Spy's Cr3ed's Christmas themed campaign: "Winter Wonderland"!

Winter Wonderland takes place in an alternate timeline where Serious Sam did not manage to find the Holy Grail so he had to continue his adventures through the snowy world of Winter Wonderland.
The campaign has just been updated this Winter, getting many quality of life improvements such as visual updates, enhanced boss fights, and some of the most known bugs and requested changes

We highly recommend this Christmas campaign and we advise you to enjoy it with some milk and cookies. You can also call your friends for some co-op mayhem!
As always, don’t forget to read the interview with Spy's Cr3ed in which he shares his experience with the creation of the campaign and his struggles from being a beginner modder to a well established veteran now.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! See you in 2023 with more "Featured Mod" articles!

Link to the campaign: https://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2811668527

HO-HO-HO! Happy Holidays everyone! Today we are speaking with a fellow countryman from Bulgaria, so I didn't need to drag him to my basement from afar. Please greet Spy's Creed!

⚪Welcome to the basement Spy, please introduce yourself to those who don't know you. Since when are you a part of the Serious Sam community and when did you start modding for the game?

Hola Yasen, a fellow bulgar! I'm the one whose name has always been misspelled. On a serious note, I'm mainly known as a modder and recently as an animator as well. I've dedicated a good time of my childhood to modding with trials and errors and overall this has been a very fun and challenging experience. What brought me to modding was a misclick back in the day. I've always been wondering what's the purpose of the other executable icons until I ended up opening the Editor and my curiosity increased even more!

⚪You have mostly specialized in making weapon animations and they are indeed very good. What encouraged you to create a whole campaign such as Winter Wonderland? What was the experience of working on such a big project?

I've always wanted to make some kind of campaign. I love the creativity you can put into the visuals and the way you can create interesting gameplay with proper balance and gimmicks. The only problem is that this takes a lot of time and you really gotta know what makes a map look and play interesting. Working on Winter Wonderland was a very awesome experience. A lot of stuff was constantly changing. The first idea was to just make a short map that represents one of the Serious Sam Xbox cutscenes but extended into a level. Later this turned into a concept for an entire campaign. Due to the scale of the project, I've always had concerns if it's worth it, if I can even make it, and so on, which led to some delays in the release date.

Now it's time to introduce Anna "Musearys" Lazarev who was remaking some of the Serious Sam soundtracks and posting them on CT. I remember that she asked if somebody was interested in her remixes being included in people's maps. I decided to give it a shot and showed her the concept and work in progress. She apparently liked it so much that she offered to compose an entire OST for the campaign which was very surprising, so why not give it a try, let's go wild! Besides being a composer, I met a real friend in her. She's been with me since the beginning and I'm very glad that she wasn’t even concerned about giving up because it took a while. I'm not gonna lie, it took time until the release. Her work was one of the greatest motivations to actually cross the line of just abandoning yet another project. I was consistently watching how she kept improving with her music, which really made me push the campaign's visuals and gameplay as well. I wanted the soundtrack quality to complement the campaign's quality.

⚪Anna has become a huge part of the community by doing a great job at community projects and also composing for Siberian Mayhem! Now that the campaign is a year old, do you plan on putting all the experience you have gained into another campaign or do you plan on putting it into some other project?

I have a few projects in mind, yeah. Some are in progress, but I don't have as much free time anymore as I used to before. It's not like I'm super busy, but it's just not the same. So yeah the future will show what new I can bring into the workshop I would love to. One of the most publicly known projects I’m currently working on is Jungle Inferno for Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem. We've already had alpha testing and people liked it. Unfortunately, they just don't realize how much more work is required to be the way I want it to be. I can describe it as If Serious Sam 2 and Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope were merged into one. I really love the art style of both and it seems very fitting with each other

⚪You mentioned starting modding young. What are some pieces of advice that you would give to the young and new modders, now that you have left all this experience behind?

Something I'd highly suggest is: START EASY! Don't go for an ultra-massive project. I know that your mind can go wild and you want to try everything, but I can almost guarantee you the burnout you'll feel with it and later the failure. If you want to make a level, cool, go for it, but let it be something that you can realistically continue working on until it's finished. Always listen to the feedback and consider applying it if it's reasonable enough. Most of the beginner modders are having this mindset that constructive feedback is a form of hate, which is NOT! Feedback is what will drastically improve your mods and you as a modder. Another thing that is community-related is that when you're asking for help, be polite and patient! Mind you that most of the modders you praise are way older than you so try to not make them feel bothered.

⚪ That is actually a very good piece of advice I totally agree with. Okay Spy, my Bulgarian brother, I would like to thank you for coming to my basement and having this interview. Let’s wrap it up and open a bottle of rakija, but before that, please wish something to our dear readers for the Holiday and feel free to shout out to anyone, the stage is all yours!

If you ended up here then I guess you've read it all which is kinda epic. I hope you found anything from that interview useful and uhh.. that's about it. Happy Holidays!! I wish everyone good luck, happiness, and success in the new 2023 year! Thanks to everybody who has helped me in the past. I really do appreciate the people who had the nerve to handle me wow... UrbanDeHuman, DeadKadath, and absolutely everybody else!

Hello in another Featured Mod episode! Today we are featuring Thanadrax's survival map "Blood Sugar". Make no mistake, as this is no ordinary survival map. It works as a rogue lite, exploration project. The players are free to explore, do quests and fight bosses in a pace of their desire.

The progression goes through 11 tiers consisting of 4 quests each until the player conquers the whole island! There are 100 quests and 31 bosses you get to enjoy. It is possible to beat this survival map. The reason for it being a survival map and not a campaign one is, as mentioned before, to have a rogue lite feeling to it and the players to value their lifes.

Make sure to check the level and the rest of Thana's survival map collections. Also do not forget to read the Basement Chat with Yasen, its a pretty good one!

Link to mod: https://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2342502363

Hello everyone and welcome to the new “Featured Mod” episode! Today in my basement I've dragged a modder with a huge backlog of workshop items. She has made many map campaigns, game modes, and player models, but today we’re focusing on her survival game modes, and she has tons of good ones! Welcome, Thanadrax!

⚪Hello Thana, please tell us the beginning of the journey that led you to have numerous Serious Sam mods. What inspired you to start modding for our games?

Hello! Get ready for a long story, which I'll gladly tell. Since childhood, I wanted to create something like my own world in one form or another. Due to age, I had very low skills in modding. I started from making maps for Warcraft 3 and eventually got to Serious Sam. I always wanted to make a map for Serious Sam, but I thought that it's very complicated and I wouldn't be able to even process how this editor works. Also in the past, there was no proper mapping guide. In 2012, I found out that the Serious Sam series has communities and my very first community was 7smoke. And hey, it was you who found me! I still have no idea how.
I’ve met many awesome people out there and eventually, I started making my first map since I had seen everyone around doing it. I was around 13 years old. Surely I used to have quite explosive behaviour leading to some... incidents, but I'm still very grateful to such people like Noam who led me through the road of map making to what I have now and see me grow as a person. 7smoke Tennis was one of the best ways to start modding, since you felt yourself being a part of something bigger- and it was absolutely fun. Many things happened in my life around nine years after these days, and I can safely say that my main inspiration for the source of modding for Serious Sam is the game itself and its community. It's just what I will always cling to.

⚪I guess I have an eye for people if It was me who found you! I could sense you were once a Warcraft 3 modder. That game was also one of the first communities in which I participated. I used to organise events there, play tons of mods and despite Sam or WC3 being such different games, I think many Serious Sam modders were in some way influenced by Warcraft, it is a game really dear to my heart. I was really happy to see this Warcraft 3 influence in mods of yours, for example the "Blood Sugar" survival map includes Warcraft SFX and also your survival map "Forest Scout" gave me "Enfo" vibes. Are there other games that serve as inspiration for your game mods?

You were right about Enfo's inspiration regarding Forest Scout. That indeed was a shout to this map. Some games which inspire me the most even now are Final Fantasy XIV, Elden Ring, and Binding of Isaac. FFXIV is a great MMORPG that has many emotional stories, some of which I would have wanted to retell in Serious Sam. Mortal Instants is entirely based on FFXIV's OST emotions. Elden Ring is the most recent Souls game, and, as I am a big fan of the Souls series. Its world-building and gross creatures inspire me to do something memorable. Some of my old survival maps for BFE were made with heavy inspiration from Souls games. Binding of Isaac is an absolute RNG fest, and boy this is what inspires me - randomness. Blood Sugar was made with the thought of being as repeatable as possible rogue-like survival. And, well, Serious Sam itself is a big source of inspiration! Emotions you have when you play this game, especially SS4 and SM- that is something I wouldn't have gotten in any other game.

⚪ You mentioned 7smoke Tennis. How does it feel to work on a collab mod? Which are your favourite collabs that you have done and would you recommend to new modders to try work on a collab?

It's both scary and intriguing! Well, for the first time. Once you get some experience, you eagerly get to work on your part. It's so much fun! If it is such a collab as Tennis, people are going crazy with story twists and effort put in maps. I will never forget 7smoke Tennis for its "Oh come on not the wake up from the sleep story again!" moments. It was so unexpected and ridiculous. In fact, working on a collab mod is not only funnier but also easier and more valuable. I myself always work in collaboration with Cyborg.SeriousSite and while I work on level design and enemies, he is doing the coding wonders for our projects. Then cool things are born after that. Would I recommend such an experience to new modders? Actually, I'd say that they have to try it out! You can participate in something big and ask others for help, suggestions and advice. This is what usual map-making lacks a lot. 7smoke Tennis 4 was my favourite collab from the past which, despite not being really the best map pack ever, left many positive memories. I want more people to enjoy this experience as much as possible, so now from April of this year I hold Khreth Mapping Challenge- a spiritual successor of 7smoke Tennis with refreshed rules. 17 participants are there. 14 have already submitted their maps!

⚪ Make sure to hit me up once the mapping challenge is finished so we can do coverage of it, sounds really exciting! I'm really happy to hear about more collab events taking place as they really create a sense of community and I think they are the perfect place for new modders to learn and improve their craft, as long as everyone is open minded about helping them. Moving forward now- we mentioned your huge backlog of mods. Which of those hold a special place in your heart and would totally recommend for people to play?

Noted. Can I just say to check every mod of mine right after 2018? I think that 2018 is the year when I started making mods for fun. There are several mods which I would recommend others to play if they want to get to know my mods. Except for 666 Darkness Way. No. Don't play it. T&C Co-Op gamemode is a number one mod that turns every session into a chaotic experience. Grab your friends, start Lobby level, set some options in the terminal and get going. Many possibilities for unique situations and experiences- this is what I always wanted to see in Serious Sam. Then, I want to recommend The Warchaser- a 2 levels campaign for Serious Sam Siberian Mayhem, where I pushed attention to enemy balance and classic formula. And lastly, Blood Sugar. It requires a lot of workshop items to play, but they are used properly - many new enemies are appearing in certain quests to spice things up. And doing quests in Serious Sam is not something you would usually see. There is a magnum opus of mine in the works, which is Project TSIR. I have been making this mod for 5 years already and hope to see it released in... far future. This mod should be my last big mod for Sam, concluding everything I made and always wanted to make. But not the last mod in general! Mapping collabs and survival maps will always be out as long as I have access to SED, haha!

⚪ I'm glad you mentioned those future projects of yours, because my next question was going to be about your future. What can the community expect from you in regard to mods and what are your plans even outside of modding?

It's so scary! The future, I mean. I might disappear for a few months next year, but after that I'll come back and push out plenty of stuff to the workshop. But, anyways, back to the topic. I plan to make more survival maps for Serious Sam 4 and Siberian Mayhem. Gameplay in these two games is just made for survival- it is very fun and just right to spend some hour or two by playing survival! Besides, every year I plan to host Khreth Mapping Challenges for the community to get more into mapping and release big campaigns. And now to the main point... TSIR. This mod, while being in development for a while, is still in early development. It is supposed to be a 40+ levels campaign with hundreds of new enemies, plenty of new weapons, and even skill mechanics. We will also implement an achievements system, but it would stay exclusive to my Discord server, since achievements are stored inside the Discord server channel. Currently, we’ve made around 11 levels, 30+ enemies, and three new weapons, thanks to Cyborg.SeriousSite and Bazar. This mod was supposed to be a remake of the infamous Thana's Insanity mod, but after a few levels, I decided to make it a different thing. Outside of Sam, I plan to make a game based on Blood Sugar gameplay. A recent Microworks release proved to me that it is possible to turn a mod into a game. Whatever else comes to my mind- be assured, I do not plan to leave the community or the game. I've got a job recently, and it's making me happy to know that, after getting back home, I can spend some time in Serious Sam, editor, and aged like a wine Supernatural TV series.

⚪ I wish you all the best in the future and I can't wait to see and play all your future work. We are at the end of this interview. I want to thank you for coming to the basement. I hope you find it good and comfy. For the finale as usual, feel free to share whatever you want with the community or do shoutouts! See you in the next Christmas Special episode my dear readers!

Serious Sam has a considerably small community. Stay together, don't go crazy for little dramas, and let newbies shine like stars. I would like to thank Cyborg.SeriousSite for being my number one person, and also CT Discord, SeriousSite, 7smoke, Khreth communities.
And, most importantly, thank you Yasen! Your basement talks are motivating people to do more original and unique mods. Expect more mods coming soon!

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Hello everyone! It’s been a while since the last featured mod article, but I’m sure Serious Sam Siberian Mayhem has been keeping you occupied with some serious action.

Let's escape the heatwaves and take ourselves to the cold mountains in ArtemPredator’s Serious Sam Fusion campaign- “Operation Frostbite"


The campaign's storyline is easy to follow- you are in Siberia looking for commander Borok, one of Mental's most dangerous commanders. All you have to do is find him and kill him, as simple as that. The gameplay however spices things up a little bit more as the map pack includes a handful of exclusive new custom weapons such as the "Blaster" rifle and some new toys for you to play with, like a battle mech! Have I mentioned that this campaign is for Serious Sam Fusion?

This mod is definitely worth checking out, give it a shot by subscribing here: https://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2590872471

And now for something completely different


Hey everyone and welcome to another Basement Chat episode. Today I'm welcoming a guest who comes all the way from Siberia and that guest is ArtemPredator!

⚪Hey Artem, nice to have you here. Please introduce yourself to the community- when did you join the Serious Sam community and when was the first time you decided to give Serious Sam modding a shot?

Hello there. I'm SilverPredator (or Artem, or Chrysalis). I joined Serious Sam's community many years ago (somewhere between 2011-2012). I was playing Serious Sam a lot at that time, all games I had.
I really like many maps and mods made by the community and always dreamed about making something by myself.
I tried to learn the Serious Sam Editor by myself, but it seems I was too... young for it? Or just didn't understand some parts of it. Luckily, my very good friend Thanadrax helped me to make my first level in Fusion, which looks at least OK (my first survival map). It wasn't my first work at all, but it was my first work that looked really nice. And then... it all started = )


⚪Operation Frostbite is pretty lengthy and big in content, when did you start working on the campaign and how long did it take you to finish it?

Well, with enemies and weapons I worked by myself (except Mossberg shotgun, which was animated by my friend Bazar- author of SS4 weapon pack for Fusion).
A huge support I got in development is scripts. Thanks a lot to my friend YANexus who taught me how to write scripts and how they can be used. It's pretty difficult to work, but actually very interesting.
And of course I got a lot of feedback from the community on my WIPs in the Croteam Discord server and SeriousSite Discord Server.
I took resources for models from sites with downloadable free models. Unfortunately, I don't know how to make models... not like shish....
And I also should say about Mr.Ogurchick who also helped me with making some secrets for my mod.

I am also very grateful to John J. DIck for agreeing to participate in the voice acting of the project. I was a bit shy to write to him, but he is a very nice guy. I even offered him a cash reward, which I saved up in advance. But he refused and did everything only for gratitude and very high quality.
I was very surprised and flattered by the fact that he did this for my project, which I still consider not as professional as the work of other modders.


⚪It's always great when modders help one another and John has always been such a sweetheart when it comes to the Serious Sam Community. He takes a lot of his free time to provide a voice where needed.
What does the future hold for you Artem? Do you plan to do another Campaign but maybe this time for Serious Sam 4 or maybe something else?

I am currently working on 2 projects for Fusion, both should be sequels of Frostbite.
But this time I'm trying to make something... different.... I really like to make experiments in the Serious Editor and experiment with some of the script functions which lead me to some interesting results. For the first one- I'm trying to make Serious Sam only a 3rd person game. It has a lot of script functions, but not enough to be playable with comfort.
But, actually, for now, this project develops slower than Frostbite. All because I'm making experiments and... yeah... studying of course. :3
About Serious Sam 4, I would like to work in it, but unfortunately for me, my PC isn't strong enough for this game. It's sad actually because SS4 has some fixes for functions and vehicles, which Fusion doesn't have. I could even try to make something for SS4, but for now, there are only 2 projects in my mind. I just can't think about anything else for now. I hope I will be able to finish them at some point in the future.


⚪Great to hear that you are full of ideas and I'm really looking forward to what you will create next, wishing you the best of luck in that! As for the interview finale, feel free to share anything you want with our readers!


Don’t be afraid to start! I really like to see when the community makes new content for the games. I used to be a newbie too (well, I'm actually still : D), but I wanna say- don't be shy to try. Most of the community will help you, show you your issues, and will help you fix them!
That was actually how I learned and am still learning Editor now.

Hi Everyone,

I have explosive Serious Sam news to share with you. Serious Sam: Kamikaze Attack! has launched on Steam! The game was first released 10 years ago on mobile as a part of the Serious Sam indie series, but over time the game slowly disappeared from the stores. As the game’s developer it was painful to see it fade away. Fans have been sending in requests to keep the game alive and it was haunting me that I couldn’t revive the game until now. I’ll finally be able to rest peacefully knowing the hordes of headless kamikazes are back at their jobs of chasing down Serious Sam.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1623420/Serious_Sam_Kamikaze_Attack/

It’s an honor to bring Serious Sam: Kamikaze Attack! to Steam for you to play. If you have any questions or want to chat about the game please feel free to post in the game’s community group or join Croteam’s Discord server.

Thanks for playing!

Brad Johnson
Be-Rad Entertainment

Hi everyone! It’s been a while since we last featured a mod on these here pages, but times are tough. The pandemic, a new game release (check out Serious Sam 4 if you haven’t already, my guy), and a bunch of earthquakes all had an impact on what's happening in and around Croteam. However, we haven’t forgotten about our great modding community or the players who enjoy them. It just so happens that another cool mod has landed on the Serious Sam Fusion Workshop today, and what makes that one special is that I’m a playable character.

All jokes aside, Seriously Retro: Karnak 1996 is an absolutely amazing total conversion mod which takes you back in time. Sam is super low-poly again, and he’s revisiting his old friends in the Karnak Temple. As the authors say, the mod brings a bunch of changes to the original, which include reworked battles, secrets, and traps, as well as environments. The mod is even ready for VR!

Check out this cool Seriously Retro - Karnak 1996 trailer below, then grab your mice or put on your VR headsets, and get shootin’.

For more info on the mod, please visit Seriously Retro - Karnak 1996 on Steam Workshop.

https://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2429128518

With that being said, we’d like to take this chance to introduce to you a brand new section we like to call Basement chats with Yasen. Yasen has been locked up under the Croteam HQ and luring in prey for weeks. The first ones to fall for his traps are the authors of today’s featured mod. Nitronik, Movento, and ToxicSwarm spoke about the motivation behind the mod and gave us a little insight into how it came to be. Read more below.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/564310/view/3044969559720189843

Are you making Serious Sam or The Talos Principle mods yourself? Reach out to our community team directly via Discord[discord.gg], or holler at us via Twitter - @croteam, @serioussamiam, @danny_hr, and @yasenstavrev.

Much love from Croteam!
Danny