Scrapped Serious Sam stuff and beta info

[Squadala]

This was posted before the crash, but it's interesting enough that I think it would be reposted.

Unused weapons and enemies in SS1: http://tcrf.net/Serious_Sam:_The_First_Encounter

Analysis of the Test 1 beta: http://tcrf.net/Proto:Serious_Sam:_T...counter/Test_1

[Solais]

On the subject of the famous Hatshepsut hole: Nothing shows better that the maps in HD were converted using a converter that the fact that this unused secret hole is in Serious Sam HD as well, with the non-working triggers and stuff as well.

[God Of Gaming]

I noticed something quite interesting.

Here is an (untextured) screenshot from the scrapped Karnak from the beta (the one on the right)


And here is an actual reconstruction of the real Karnak


It's easy to notice the layout is almost the same, while the final version of Karnak is almost completely made up.

[God Of Gaming]

Sorry for bumping, but I've gotta show you what I found just now. There seems to be a lot of leftovers from the beta in the final Karnak. I loaded KarnakDemo.wld in SED1 and did some flyovers, matching images from the beta with traces of them that I noticed. Here are the most major of them.

This is the final area of the level, and by the shape of it, it looks like it contained the room with the rising obelisk from luxor. 3 screenshots from the beta match perfectly here, I only added 2 of them because of not enough space, but these 2 are enough I think. This whole structure with some modifications later became Luxor. There was no Luxor level in the beta, according to the level list in test 1.


Furthermore, it looks like the level wasn't ending there before. In the yard where you go left for the ankn pool, you were also able to go right to a few more yards and somethink like a djoser pyramid, maybe the level ended there. Theres a lot of leftovers from this one. Here's some matchups.


Last but not least, theres a bunch of obelisks out in the open, that match with the location of the lost sacred lake that you can see in the previous screenie. Here's a good matchup. You can see the Djoser-like Pyramid in the back in both screenies.


Darn, the original Karnak was awesome!

[Devostator]

Cool

[Discy]

Where do you people find all these screenshots? Are there more?

[God Of Gaming]

Well, I can't make more comparisons, since the only other map left from the beta is Moon Mountains, and I can't find any traces from the beta there. There are a lot of screenshots from the beta, probably more than 100, i have quite a few on this pc and even more on my other pc. Probably the most significant remnant from the beta is this video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1UIYgKD0Mg - released by CroTeam in 2000, way before the release of The First Encounter

[AntonioR]

Is there an official term for "video game beta archeology" ?

[Discy]

Originally Posted by GodOfGaming

Well, I can't make more comparisons, since the only other map left from the beta is Moon Mountains, and I can't find any traces from the beta there. There are a lot of screenshots from the beta, probably more than 100, i have quite a few on this pc and even more on my other pc. Probably the most significant remnant from the beta is this video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1UIYgKD0Mg - released by CroTeam in 2000, way before the release of The First Encounter

Well, how about giving the rest of us some love as well? I'm dying to see all these shots.

[God Of Gaming]

Originally Posted by Discy

Well, how about giving the rest of us some love as well? I'm dying to see all these shots.

I've got most of these from CroTeam's site and from old posts from this forum, so I'm not sure if there's any need to post them again, but if you want it so much, here I go

Click on the thumbnails for larger view.


There might be some images from Test 1 in between these, I was too lazy to sort them out BTW, this is how Ugh Zan looked like - with minigun, shield and 3 heads:

[Devostator]

That looks better then SS2

[Discy]

Holy crap, that looks awesome.

[God Of Gaming]

Yeah, it was definitely amazing and HUGE! That's why I'm using it as the main source of inspiration for my mod. I would even kill a sirian werebull to get my hands on this beta

[Discy]

The Sirian sky city levels look complex and intricate. No wonder they dropped the off-planet part, finishing that would have taken forever.

[God Of Gaming]

Maybe I should add these 3 too. These are the earliest known screenshots, dating back to 1996. The game's name was In the Flesh, using CroTeam's engine S-Cape3D, so no, it's not Serious Engine, but that's the game that later became Serious Sam so I think it's relevant enough.

[Solais]

Originally Posted by Discy

The Sirian sky city levels look complex and intricate. No wonder they dropped the off-planet part, finishing that would have taken forever.

Well, that became SS2. And look how that turned out.

But then again SS2's Sirius Sky City looked just as awesome. (Actually if you see SS2's Sky City with the beta plans, they really look similar. Especially Siriusopolis Downtown.)

But then again, if Croteam really remakes SS2 as they wanted to do it, aka what possibly be SS4, then that means that all these beta pictures may become a reality. (Just with better graphics and art.)

Also, you can see that Sirius would have used the crazy gravity extensively. So maybe if Croteam makes those levels as they wanted it, maybe they will fix the crazy gravity feature? (Now thinking about it, The Next Encounter's Atlantis is a lot like how Sirius was supposed to be... that game even has the electricity ray gun...)

Also: Damn, that Nile River level should have made in, so awesome it would have been!

[God Of Gaming]

They could have added a boat ride across the Nile from the Luxor temple to The Great Pyramid of Giza easily. They are both really close to the shore of the Nile in real life, and they are very far away from each other, I'm talking probably thousands of kilometers, so a boat ride should be a better idea than walking on foot Actually thats probably the way it was, you can see some big pyramids in the back, as well as a Sphynx on a small island. And also, I'm pretty sure the name of the map was PyramidValley.wld, so that would explain it

[Solais]

I actually planned a Nile level for both SS1 many years ago, and for SSHD for my canceled project. Who knows, I may revisit the idea.

[~Orcrist]

@Thread

Nice and interesting piece of history !

[Scratch]

I never noticed those things on the original maps before, but I've seen almost all of the old pictures you posted. Used to have a folder full of them, don't think I have it anymore though.

[God Of Gaming]

I found a few more beta images from Karnak on one russian site. There were a lot of fake images there, but I think I managed to separate the real ones


From this angle these images prove what I found earlier about current Luxor being part of beta Karnak, though maybe mirrored the other way around

[Discy]

Very nice.

[Mongo]

Wow, the In The Flesh game looks pretty cool. Maybe Croteam should do a re-imagining of it or something for their next game.

[God Of Gaming]

They used most of its ideas in SS3 I think.

[cicvara]

too bad those Worlds (lava, water... alien ... whatever) wasn't made
would be so good

SS2 IMO sucked bigtime even if its plot was on other worlds
but this ideas they had would be better

[Jester Of Destiny]

Well, I've read about the fire, water, etc. planets, and I find it too generic, while I would love to play the full karnak and other scrapped egypt maps. And I would love to kill and use in my maps those dragonmen!

[cicvara]

why generic
they would be separate unique worlds

just like Super Mario Bros 3 had
I think it would be a blast

[Jester Of Destiny]

It was generic because this idea is used in almost every games. Even if the fire planet (kleer?) looks awesome.

[God Of Gaming]

Maps can have a different filename than the one described in the game. For example, TSE's last level file is named CorridorOfDeath, but in game it is The Grand Cathedral. So, in the same way, these maps's filenames can be Fire Planet, Water Planet, Tropic Planet and so on, but in the game they might have had some more specific names for all we know.

[Dankzaii]

you won´t believe it, but some guy found all the GhostBuster files for Test 1 and he played with it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi7ubmZTdZM
i know this isnt the playable ghostbuster, but the weapon files are available!!