Serious Gameplay and Replay

Gameplay

First off, let's see some of the insane action in motion for Serious Sam Double D!

That was the first official gameplay trailer for the game. There will be some more trailers highlighting various aspects such as the GunStacker system.

Replayability

With a few weeks before release, Serious Sam Double D has undergone a drastic but excellent change that heavily increases the replayability of the game.

Previously the game followed a simple structure: You battled your way from the start to the end, finding powerups and cool secrets. But if you happen to miss anything, the only real way to get it was to start from the beginning again and hope to remember where it was.

Level Select screen letting you replay any level again, with all your gear.

Not anymore!
Now Sam has a Persistent Inventory system which means any gun, connector, secret, or challenge you happen to find, he gets to keep in any level. Plus, you can replay any previous level you've been!
Yes, you can take all the guns you've been collecting all along the way and head back to easier, previous levels any time you want and search for more hidden guns, secrets, or challenges tucked about.

So while initially you may have only had access to 3 guns in the first level, you can battle half way through the game, then replay the first level, now with something more like 12 guns and tons of connectors! Then you can find more weapons, then head *back* to level 7 or 8 (or wherever you were) with yet-more guns to better even the odds.

Starting level 1 from scratch with the Machine Pistol.

Returning to level 1 with a 5 gun stack, ready to fine more loot!

Plus we have good news that the Secrets menu is working great. You can look any time you want at secrets you've unlocked and revisit the funnier ones, or just use it to know how many are still to be found. And because the inventory is persistent, you can simply play from whatever secret you visit and any more powerups you find will be added to your inventory for access in later levels or your current one.

The black arrow is pointing to the little treasure box icon that shows up when you're near a secret.

And one extra helper is the Treasure icon. It definitely doesn't make it too easy, but it does fade in slowly if you're getting warm when finding a secret.

General Maxilla

Click to zoom

 Serious Sam Double D features a new antagonist, four-star General Maxilla. Little does Sam know, but the General is tasked with stopping Sam while Mental is on holiday. In between levels players are treated to a 'behind the scenes' look at Mental's operations, and how the General works (sometimes unsuccessfully) to wrangle the motley crew and ready them for battle.

Click to zoom

Here's animation video showing the General's talking animations. This shows the General in Mommy's Best Games animation editor, letting you see the animation skeleton and how the joint-connected-sprites form the animations.

All this means, hey--we're finishing up the in-game movies! And that means Double D is getting very close to finished for PC!

Double D Pompeii and Secrets

There's not much left to do on Serious Sam Double D.. and then there's a lot left to do. We're currently finishing up the last area, which is actually two distinct envrionments. The time period and region for both environments is Pompeii around 79AD just before Mount Vesuvius erupts.

The first area is an exterior view of the city of Pompeii with the volcano in the background. And *naturally* the second area is in the volcano itself! Turns out that the evil Mental's henchmen have built massive power sucking devices which hover over the lava and aborb the heat, transferring the energy through time to the Big Bad himself! Sam's job isn't so much to disable the devices, but rather make his way through this area to the final boss.

Early construction of the Pompeii exterior area. Art is still being tweaked, plus there's no cool enemies shown yet!

Currently I'm finishing up art I had roughed in before, Hamdija is still working on music tracks, Richard is coding background effects, and AJ is tweaking story elements and dialog.

What's in the Pompeii area? Well not to spoil everything but the enemies in final levels are more consistently BIG. As in, giant, walking caterpillar as big a building BIG. A caterpillar that stands up and acts like a massive wall. And has 3 different guns. And has a detachable head. Yeah, it all makes sense in the game. Serious sense.


Serious Sam games are famous for the fun secrets, and we're working to make some great ones. We wanted to make sure you get the most enjoyment out of those unique secrets. To that end, we're also implementing a special Secrets Menu. Instead of the typical version of completing a level and seeing you found 4/7 secrets, now you'll be able to look any time at this menu and see any level you've been in, and all the secrets you've found. There will be the full name and full description of each secret.

Secret cave from Serious Sam The First Encounter

And we're even looking at a way for you to visit them! For instance, if you find one of the 'comedy secrets' and really want to show a friend, you can just open the Secrets Menu, find that secret and click 'Visit' and you'll be loaded into the level just before the funnies. Still working out the kinks but so far it's pretty cool.

And then there's installation, localization and all that fun stuff. Oh and still the final boss. So we're close, but still a little ways to go. But we're getting there!

Serious Press and Help

E3 Press

Serious Sam Double D box art

E3 is over and Double D wowed press all around!
Check out this in-depth coverage from Dealspwn: http://www.dealspwn.com/sam-double-preview-guns-tits-corpse-piling-63785
"By far the most surreal moment came later in the demo when Sam found himself mired in a mysterious sticky fluid. “It’s maple syrup, dude,” explained Fouts… as an enormous stack of pancakes studded with vuvuzelas leapt into centre stage. This hilarious monstrosity made me burst out laughing thanks to the sheer unexpected sillyness of it all (and its adorable blueberry eyeballs)"

And a great look at the game from The Escapist:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/110973-E3-Serious-Sam-Double-D
"Double D starts in Egypt, but features other level types such as the prehistoric Nova Scotia that features dinosaurs and tar pits. Sam can hop on the backs of flying dinos to find secrets, and will have to take down giant spineasauruses while avoiding their bites."

I've put together the proper Serious Sam Double D webpage with tons more press, check it out!

 Little Hearts Matter

 In other news, gamer Isaac Hume has asked for help for his charity of choice Little Hearts Matter.


From Isaac:
"This charity helped save my nephew’s life when he was born with a portion of his heart missing and also helped to rehabilitate him into the healthy toddler that he is today.

In order to raise the donation I’m doing what I know how to do best. With the help of a couple of friends, I’ll be running a 24 hour livestream on 15^th July, playing and talking about games. My three friends and I will play games, encouraging people watching the stream to get involved, play multiplayer with us and donate to a worthy cause that helps save lives."

Little Hearts Matter treat conditions like Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS). While rare, the condition is fatal unless treated. Learn more about it here: http://www.lhm.org.uk/

Here's the Isaac's donation page for Little Hearts Matter: www.justgiving.co.uk/temporalcortex


And here's the entertainment for the live streaming page for July 15th.
www.justin.tv/temporalcortex

Make sure to check it out and donate to a worthy cause!

Serious Shirts

Speaking of donations, Isaac asked MBG for some promotional help. We're donating a Serious Sam Double D shirt as seen here.

The shirt has the SSDD box art featuring the Gun Stacker on the front, large. On the back, there's a small Mommy's Best Games logo. All printing on cheery, Sun Beam Yellow!

We're only doing very limited prints of the shirts and one will be given away on Isaac's live streaming show on July 15th!

If you don't feel so lucky and would simply like to buy one for $25 + shipping, email me: nathan ((at)) mommysbestgames ((dot) com.

Double D at E3 2011

 There will be an all-new, polished, playable build of Serious Sam Double D at E3 2011 available in a behind-the-scenes capacity. What does that mean?

If you're a reporter-type just email me (Nathan) and I'll find a time slot for you to play the game.
We'll have for you some snappy demo sequences pulled from over a dozen levels of over-the-top, gun-stacking gameplay, plus some E3-special screenshots just for you.


If you won't be attending E3, don't fret! Those journalists at the show will be working hard to bring you awesome preview impressions and previously mentioned game shots.

In the meantime enjoy these screens!

Shooting up some Chimputees in the Amethystine Depths

Gorey globs gliding through the air in a challenge level.

As for actual development, we're currently adding all the polish points like robotic menu display cores and attenuating musical transitions--no Serious game's complete without 'em!