Mapping Jam 1: Fantasy Jam (2021)

Preview

Title: Fantasy Mapping Jam 2021
Authors: Beef (Solo), Rakanishu & Maska322 (Team)
Number of Levels: 2
Date of Release: 6th March 2021
Latest Update: -
Mapping Period: 15th November 2020 - 1st March 2021

List of participants and their maps (not a ranking):

1. Beef --- Castle of Nowhere
2. Rakanishu & Maska322 --- Harrogath: Demo

Description of the maps (Please read carefully)

Castle of Nowhere by Beef:
Set after Land of the Damned, Sam finds himself in a cold night in an unknown place that not even NETRICSA can identify. The only thing they know is the huge presence of Mental's hordes standing in this mysterious castle. Our hero needs to fight his way through it so he can reach The Grand Cathedral.

DISCLAIMER for Beef's entry: Beef is a newcomer in Serious Editor 1. He has shown to lack some of basic knowledge on how to properly build a map. As the organizer of the Mapping Jam, I operate in quality control for the entries. Therefore, his map is unplayable for medium / medium-high computers. I have 10 fps on my medium machine and 30 fps on my strong one - which would also be unplayable in multiplayer.

After several days of thinking and after having asked for advice, I came up with the following decision: The Mapping Jams are open to anyone and I don't want to discriminate anyone according to their skill. I didn't want to reject his entry but do not expect something playable for this map.

However, an idea has gone through my mind. I do want to rebuild his map in a clean way because it has very good ideas. I am sure I can make something playable over what he proposes as a map. I want to record as a video (fast mapping session) the process I will run into to transform his map in something clean. I will deliver after this, the clean version of the map. 

Why I don't do it before? Because it would take too much time and delay the official release date of this mapping event, which is not something I want to happen. This process will be a long job (maybe few months, if nothing interrupts the well-going of the process).

I hope you understand that I don't want to propose unplayable things, but also I don't want to reject the work of people sending their job.

Harrogath: Demo by Rakanishu & Maska322:
A siege is devastating the town. The village is out of power and calls for its last chance, Sam Serious Stone. The hero will have to fight and go through frigid highlands to rescue his pairs.

Welcome

Serious Sam Classics is proud to announce the 1st mapping JAM on this server. First what is a mapping Jam? Basically, "Jamming" is making something off the hook, just relax and go with the flow. As an example when people play music together, they jam together, that means they don't play any certain song, just play what's on their mind, improvise some solos and stuff...

The idea of a Mapping Jam is simply creating a map and sharing to others through the event. Each Mapping Jam will have a theme and rules. Once the maps collected, there will be a release of all the maps (individually packed) in the discord server and in Rakanishu’s page.

Another important point of the Mapping Jam is that the events advocate fun, sharing, kindness and respect. This event is NOT a contest and there will in no case be a ranking in the end.

Theme

A howling wind sweeps through the open green fields that once were a place for state castles. Deep caves hide terrible secrets, technologies left by the people of those times. Magic kingdoms are re-opening their gates yet again, and it's time for Sam to step his feet on this land.
The theme of the first Mapping Jam is Fantasy Medieval! Show us your creativity coming along this theme!

Schedule

Starting Date: 15th November 2020
Ending Date: 1st March 2021 (Maximum deadline for sending your map)

Rules and guidelines

Go with a minimum playtime of 20 minutes! No maximum playtime.
Maps are allowed to have custom assets.
Your map must be packed in a .gro-archive and launch correctly on a clean installation of Serious Sam. Don't use non-latin letters and spaces in the filenames. You can use AutoGRO to make a correct package
Mapper chooses if map will be easier/calmer or harder/intense and if the map is going to have boss fight or not (same boss can be used by multiple mappers!), mapper also chooses with what weapons you start the map with.
Mappacks and multiple maps are allowed, but only if the author is sure to respect the deadline
You're allowed to use SDK and extra DLLs in your map, but make sure you distribute all the source code with your map. You can use any resources from other maps/mods, but make sure that you have a permission from the respective authors and credit them of course.
Credit talking, if you use any resource that is NOT yours, you MUST credit it either in a Readme File that you provide with the .gro-archive or in a final cinematic sequence with a Scroll / Text FX. Doing both is even better.
You’re free to either keep your progress secret or show some footages about it sometimes.
It is highly recommended to make a coop support (using extra enemies for coop. WARNING! If you go with extra enemies for coop, never set them a death target to a trigger that has a different count in coop - it will stuck players who play in coop with extra enemies off! So always go with same count for SP and Coop, extra enemies are extra). Therefore, it is not obligatory. This is recommended because maps can lack of enemies in 4+ players multiplayer.
Mappers’ teams are allowed, you can have testers, composers, writers and other people to help you out (under your own responsibility). If you go with a team, make sure everybody involve him/herself and respect the deadline. If you do not respect the deadline and your map is unfinished, it won’t be released through the Mapping Jam.
Any unbalanced tricks to prolong the playtime is forbidden (e.g: unthoughtful enemy spam, unintuitive puzzles, etc...)
Try to make an HQ thumbnail for your map (512x512) in the format yourlevelnameTbn.tex
Set your map in the directory Levels/LevelsMP/MappingJam/MappingJam01/ so every participant’s maps’ will stand one after the other in the game’s level selection list. That prevents from having a messy level selection list.
Your map must have a beginning and an ending. Make sure there are no critical and game breaking bugs. If the event host will have to use cheats in order to finish your map, your map will be rejected. Any broken map / unfinished won't be accepted in the final release (the event host can judge this)
Anything that can be considered illegal or prohibited in any civilized country of the world is prohibited
If, by any means, you need to break one of the event rules, please, contact one Rakanishu.
If you want to leave the mapping event, you’re free to do it but talk about it with Rakanishu first. Also if you participate to this event, you’d better make sure you can do it till the end, it is not very pleasant to lose some of the participants

Thank you for reading and understand the rules & guidelines. If everybody respects them, everything will go well!

Games acceptable for Mapping:
- Serious Sam Classic: The Second Encounte

Release

Rakanishu will collect the map after the deadline. You can finish your map before the deadlines if you wish. Rakanishu, as the event host will test the maps and make sure nothing is broken and that every rule is respected. If anything is broken, the participant will be warned and will have to fix this. Once everything is fixed, we’ll go for a release both on discord & the forum.

After this will take place coop events on the released maps!

Submission

Submit your map to Rakanishu from a transfer website (mediafire, mega, yaki, whatever you want…)

F.A.Q.

Q: - Can I make a map for Serious Sam: Revolution?
A: - No: If you really want your map to be on Revolution, please build your map first in Serious Sam: The Second Encounter. TSE to Rev is an easy process. Rev to TSE is a time consuming and tricky process. Build your map for TSE, and then port it to Rev after the release!