What is up, everyone? That’s not an actual question. Jeez.
As you can see in the announcement section, today has been a very busy day for us. In celebration of the Serious Sam 20th anniversary, we have released a brand new Serious Sam 4 update bringing forward official support for modding, and sure enough, some mods have already been released which calls for a Feature, amirite?
The first featured Serious Sam 4 mod is 7Smoke Racing by our beloved Pan. For those not familiar, Pan made a similar racing mod back in 2014, for Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter. However, the limitations of that game meant the mod couldn't do quite as much as he’d hoped at first. Now, with help from NSKuber, everything is great in the world, and we have ourselves another cool Serious Sam racing game.
7Smoke Racing delivers a ton of features including 3 Grand Prix Cups and 2 Meme Cups, along with 20 Race Tracks and 9 Gold Rush Arenas. The mod supports up to 16 players, and what’s best, you and your friends can choose between a number of Serious Sam 4 characters including, but not limited to, Damjan Mravunac himself. How cool is that?!
That was also not an actual question.
Check out the mod on the Workshop, and make sure to download it ASAP. A little birdie told me Pan is planning for some cool events to take place in the weeks to come. Before you do that, check a look at another Basement Chat with Yasen where our community boi asks the difficult questions about inspiration, challenges, and goals. Check out the full interview below.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2432582356&searchtext=
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Basement Chats with Yasen - 7SMoke Racing
⚪ Hey Pan, glad to have you with us! Can you share with us when you became part of the Serious Sam community, and when did you start creating mods for the Sam games?
Hey, glad to be here. Is this a new office? Wow. I don't quite remember when I became a member of the Serious Sam community, all I know is that I've been playing the games since TFE came out in 2001. I started creating mods when the editor came out for the HD Games, where Viper45 helped me learn the ins and outs of the tools. Then Finzy helped me improve further. I started out with shitty player models and then some VS levels!
⚪ What inspired you to go and say – "Hey, I want to make a kart mod for Serious Sam" – a game that is known for anything but that?
When it comes to modding, some people like to push the game’s mechanics as far as they can. Some want to perfect what's already there. I like to experiment with what alternative things you can do with a mod. I love total conversions in other games that give you a whole new experience in a game or try something completely new. Originally the karts in HD were made for a Halo map, but I repurposed them for racing after being inspired by the concept of having a new experience in HD. Why not bring my favorite game genre into my fav shooter, you know?
⚪ Since this is one of the first mods made with the new Editor, I think a majority of mod creators in the community are curious, how far do the improvements of the new editor go, and did those improvements make your life easier when working on this mod?
Well, it hasn't crashed on me once except for reasons of my own mistakes, so that's nice! The new terrain creation system has made it easier than ever to create nice-looking backgrounds or playable areas in the game, that's for sure. I think people will have a lot of fun with that. The in-depth tools available for the Vehicles themselves is insane. The amount of customization options and intricate details that you can adjust is amazing and intimidating. The removal of signatures on items is nice, allows working with items from game to game much easier. The tools aren't hugely different from Fusion’s editor, but the terrain and vehicle tools are really nice, I like those.
⚪ What tips would you give to someone that is just starting with the editor or thinking about starting?
There are great videos on youtube from 7Smoke and other creators as well as written guides on Steam. The biggest piece of advice I can offer is: don't be afraid to fiddle around and experiment with it. There's always people around to help you out in the CT Discord and other community servers but I find that feeling around the editor yourself first is greatly rewarding.
⚪ That’s about as much as I had to ask, but I would like to thank you for coming all the way to our office basement. I really appreciate you taking the time. As a closing word, can you share your future modding plans?
Thank you for having me! I think my next idea is to look at creating a sequel to Dogfight and see if I can't make flying vehicles in Sam plus a fun campaign for it!
⚪ Woah. Can’t wait to see where the tools take you next!
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Are you making mods yourself? We'd love to take a look and share it for everyone else to see. Reach out to our community team directly via Discord, or holler at us via Twitter - @croteam, @serioussamiam, @danny_hr, and @yasenstavrev.
Much love from Croteam!
Danny