[Map] [Release] Badmoon Bog (Sp/Co-Op Campaign)

[Finzy]

Seeking shelter from the approaching darkness and the monsters lurking in the wilderness, you have arrived at a desolate cabin in the middle of a water-filled bog. Not everything is at it seems however, as you will soon want to get out of the swamps as soon as possible...welcome to Badmoon Bog, where men are driven mad by spirits.

Badmoon Bog is an experimental, unique mix of adventure, horror and typical Sam gameplay, for a primarily singleplayer experience, although it can be played in co op as well (not recommended for large amounts of players though).

Gameplay elements include:

* Adjusted speed - due to rough terrain and water, all player and enemy movement is slowed down.
* Narration - you'll comment various discoveries throughout the play
* Two maps, based on cycle of day, with very different gameplay
* Heavy use of custom sound effects and ambient sound to create athmosphere.
* Gameplay time of roughly half an hour at best, depending on how long you explore and stuff. It's not super long, and not intended to be.

Requires Jewel of the Nile DLC to play.
Default color scheme and sound settings are recommended. Also recommended to turn off some of the sillier mods you may have if you want to stay true to the mood of the map.

Credits:

All mapping & design by Finzy (me)
Additional free 3D models from TF3DM.com
Mischievous for creating base shaders and textures for the water
Devostator for converted Grunt player model
Custom sound resources from YouTube - Swamp Sounds and Scary/Dark Ambient Songs 1, Painkiller, and Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Custom music from Painkiller and Neverwinter Nights 2: MOTB OSTs
All sound resources downloaded from YouTube using YTD Video Downloader and copyright to respective owners.
Nakazimm from YouTube for a secret sound file.

Download links:

Steam Workshop
MediaFire - Save to Content/SeriousSam3
GameFront - Extract to Content/SeriousSam3

(Steam Workshop link coming soon once it's available again)

Screenshots:















Comments, newsposts, reviews, whatever welcome!

[Pan]

Fantastic! Looking forward to trying it.

[noam2000]

nice,gonna give it a try

[Greyson]

Alright, so i've just finished it. I think. I got to the credits level, went into the cabin, tried to walk out the door and nothings happened, so i'm gonna assume that there was nothing more to show.

The environment, atmosphere, and sound was ****in' fantastic. Those three factors were definitely the strongest parts of the mod, but there was one thing, just one, that I had a problem with.

And that was the combat. The combat was almost entirely unneeded as it just breaks the atmosphere that you were going for. When there are Jumbo Sized Kamikaze's coming at you along with Gnaars and Harpies, you just get sucked out of the crazy, unreal, creepy world and plucked into a regular FPS. If the fight sequences were much shorter and you spent that time making more levels in the world surrounding the bog, that would've have been much better. Well, I think anyway.

So overall, fantastic atmosphere and unneeded and dragged out fight sequences. Definitely worth a play and just shy of the best mod to come out for SS3. Just shy of it.

[Finzy]

Thanks for the fair review Greyson. Yeah there's no more in the credits level, whatever's there is just a bonus. Originally it did cross my mind to make it solely an exploration map with no fights (hence why there is a lot of looking around for stuffs), but ultimately I decided against it since I had to give it longevity somehow, and it's still Sam. It would've worked out that way if it had a larger area to explore indeed, but that would obviously take much more time and effort to create.

Maybe I could expand this sometime in the future more in that direction, not promising anything though, and it's certainly not happening soon with all the other stuff I'm supposed to finish.

Jumbo Sized Kamikaze's

None of the enemies were changed in size, they are the same size as in SS3. They might appear larger though since you're all sunk in the water and stuff though.

[Greyson]

Originally Posted by Finzy

None of the enemies were changed in size, they are the same size as in SS3.

I noticed that when I looked at the map in the editor. I don't know, they just appeared larger than I remembered them being while I was playing.

Originally Posted by Finzy

there is just a bonus.

And it may just be the best bonus eva.

[Dankzaii]

Looks good, will give it a shot Soon(tm)!

[Pan]

So I just played it and I enjoyed it. Not gonna write a full review or anything fancy just gonna chill and chuck my thoughts out there somewhat. It's definitely a new take on mapping for SS3, and that's really good. We need more like that. But I find the idea behind it all could have been taken further. The map was a small scope project and the care taken with prop placement through out both levels was definitely apparent. But I feel like there should have been more at the very beginning so we can learn a bit more about the character we are meant to be playing as (assuming it is not Sam).

Like it is a man walking through a swamp area looking for shelter. That's cool and all, but where is he really? Why is he there? This could be explained in a small scripted sequenced walking through an area before the swamp or something and may not have added too much onto the map. Speaking of scripts, I love how you added thoughts to the character if you approach certain areas, and that they can be missed and aren't shoved down your throat.

The use of ambiance and props is amazing. I was legitimately tense/frightened at one point in the map by Finzys use of lighting and ambiance along with narrative which was just awesome. The fight music distracts from the overall purpose of the map, like Greyson said. I also noticed that the enemies appeared larger than they normally are. But maybe that's just me. The slow movement of the kamikazes did help balance the uneven flooring but they were a non-threat I found. In saying that, all enemies were able to easily navigate the rocky terrain which was great.

The map is a bit slow paced but that's good, it's better than a balls to the walls action map, especially for the area size. I like how the cabin area feels lived in. The corn field, lumber and furniture really added to the feeling that someone lived here, and it had the essentials. So that was good attention to detail. I loved how things would pop out at me depending on where I stood or what I picked up and the use of premade Sam props to enhance the experience was clever.

But as I said I feel like a bit more expansion on the narrative at the start of the map and a less rock out battle theme would have helped make the map better. Two thumbs up from me, not perfect but it's good for a map of its size. Good for a taste of something different, which is what Finzy usually delivers.

[Finzy]

Thanks, that's pretty detailed actually. I agree with the basic sentiment that it could've been taken further, and I would have done that, were it not a small scale project I just picked up on the side to try something different (it's as usual, an issue with time and the effort it takes). Explaining the character further would've required more introduction as you said, so I left it more to the player's imagination.

Too bad you didn't enjoy the battle themes, I loved Painkiller's soundtrack and thought they were fitting here as well, as a contrast to the "musicless" ambience tracks.

[Finzy]

Anybody else got any thoughts to share?

[dragon99919]

Kinda Reminds me of a Painkiller's marshland boss arena. Gonna try it as soon as it's in workshop.

[Finzy]

Now available on the Steam workshop, at last, since the workshop refused to upload at all for days.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile.../?id=168648034

[Fungus]

It's art,
I only looked at pics though since I don't have the DLC sadly,
Maybe think the map needs more detail, crumbs? even if they will float in the air, just something that'll fill the place more.

[Finzy]

Thanks. I thought about adding crumbs very early on, but between floating in the air and fps issues, I thought it was simply not worth the pain. Same case with realtime reflections, it would've just cost too much fps. Think it's detailed enough as it is though.

[DeathTruckShaun]

Awesome mini-campaign, it deserves to be continued

may you should try to implant your awesome work in levels like the museum part or the INdoor pyramid part in the original campaigne, that would be awesome

Just a thing about yours, i'm on the end (I think) but nothing happened, I mean, I've killed everything that could be killed, and pick up everything that could be picked up ... si ? I don't know where to go, or what to do. I've understand that the end is on the "No entry Signal" but ... nope nothing happens :/

[Finzy]

Thx, that's probably an issue with stuck harpies somewhere. I don't know how that keeps happening since the whole level is sealed within a barrier and technically you should be able to spot them at least (they can't go behind the hills); if that happens just try reloading a savegame from before the fight and try again, it should switch to the credits as soon as you kill off the last few enemies.

[Poorchop]

The colors look great. I like the feel and the ambiance of the map. The beginning of the second level was pretty creepy and you did a great job with the sound effects. The second level was tough for me because I missed a lot of the weapons on the other side of the house before circling around the bog to the dead end, but I made it.

I had issues with harpies getting stuck as well, so I couldn't finish it. I didn't see this thread until after playing it so of course I wasn't aware that I could just reload the save. I liked the slow pacing because considering that you're surrounded by enemies in a relatively small map, it gives you time to react instead of getting bombarded by kamikazes. I could see this being turned into a bigger campaign with more levels. I'll try to go back and finish it - hopefully the harpies won't get stuck this time.